Delhi govt to rent private semi-commercial spaces to build Mohallah Clinics: Sources
NEW DELHI: After lots of tussle with the DDA, the Delhi government has decided to take semi-commercial spaces on rent to make Mohallah Clinics. By November the Delhi government to make 500 more Mohallah Clinics said the sources in the Delhi government. In an urgent meeting with the Health Minister, the department took the decision. Sources in the Delhi government also said that next week the department is likely to inaugurate nine Mohallah Clinics at various places across Delhi.
"The government has taken the decision by the end of this week the government will also release the details to the public through advertisement in media," said an official.
This flagship programme launched in 2015, the city's ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) promised 1,000 such medical centres across the capital for its nearly two crore residents, mainly the poor, apart from a sizeable floating population. "We tried to get lands from various agencies but when these things did not work, we had to take the decision of taking spaces on rent. The government will bear the cost of rent and as soon as the spaced are finalised the government will start the work of making Mohallah Clinics," said an official.
The sources said that by the next week nearly nine Mohallah Clinics which are built on Delhi Jal Board lands will be inaugurated. "After the order from the Delhi Chief Minister the DJB also provided some plots to build Mohallah Clinics. By next week we will open around nine such clinics," said an official. Along with Delhi Jal Board, the Delhi government has also planned to build up Mohallah Clinics at some government school lands.
The AAP government has been able to build only 191 mohalla clinics by 2018-19
fiscal outcome of the target of constructing 530 such
facilities by that time. The AAP government had set a target of building 530 mohalla clinics by the end of the financial year 2018-19, the recently published outcome budget 2019-20 showed.
A typical mohalla clinic has a doctor, a midwife-cum-nurse, and an array of diagnostic services and essential medicines are provided free of cost to patients there. The AAP government had projected to operationalise 250-300 'mohalla clinics' by March, the Outcome Budget 2018-19 of the Delhi government, tabled in the Assembly late February had said. As many as 189 'mohalla clinics' had been built till December 2018 with plans for 1,000 such facilities to be built cumulatively, government officials had then said.
