Health care in Capital is free for all, rich or poor: Kejriwal

NEW DELHI: Chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday said the healthcare schemes offered by his government are better than the Centre’s Ayushman Bharat scheme and said there should be healthy competition among states.

Addressing people of northwest Delhi in his sixth town hall, Kejriwal said healthcare in the national Capital is completely free for all, whether rich or poor. “The Ayushman Bharat scheme assures insurance for people, but those who own a scooter, a fridge, and cell phones and have an income of ₹10,000 will be excluded. If these criteria are applied, there will be no one eligible for the scheme,” he said.

“Therefore, we decided not to implement it. But under the Delhi government’s scheme everyone is eligible. Even the expenses of tests, treatment, surgeries, and medicines incurred in private hospitals are borne by the Delhi government if referred by any of the state-run hospitals. Delhi government gives support of up to ₹15 lakh to get treatment for severe illness at private hospitals in Delhi,” the chief minister said.

Kejriwal also emphasised the need for Centre-state coordination to smoothen the effective delivery of government services and schemes to people. “There should be competition as well as coordination between governments. If we are providing free electricity to the people of Delhi, the Central government, as well as other state governments, should competitively implement such a path-breaking scheme in the entire country. If the Haryana or Maharashtra governments implement a scheme to immensely benefit the people, the same should be adopted in Delhi,” he said.

With Assembly elections in Delhi scheduled in February, Kejriwal has been holding town halls in all seven parliamentary constituencies to talk about his government’s performance over the past five years.

Veena Sharma, a resident of Kirari, asked the chief minister about the steps taken by the government to ensure supply of onions at subsidised rates. To this, Kejriwal responded saying the Delhi government will resume supplying onions at ₹65-70 per kg in the next few days.

To a question on when the Phase-4 of the Delhi Metro will begin, Kejriwal replied, “We have cleared the files of all the six routes of the Metro from our end. Out of the six, files for three routes are still not cleared by the Central government. I hope that the extension of the Metro will clear the problem of traffic congestion in the city.”