Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to seek the Centre’s support for the state’s plans to store water of the Yamuna river during the monsoon season. Kejriwal said he congratulated Modi on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s victory in the Lok Sabha elections, and invited him to visit visit a neighbourhood clinic started by his government, and a government school.
Kejriwal said he also discussed the Centre’s Ayushman Bharat health scheme with the prime minister. “Informed honourable PM that Delhi government’s Delhi Health scheme is much bigger and wider in scope,” the chief minister tweeted. “However, assured him to examine if Ayushman Bharat scheme could also be integrated into our scheme.”
Kejriwal also assured Modi that the Delhi government would fully cooperate with the Centre for the national capital’s development.
On June 7, Kejriwal had claimed that Delhi’s healthcare scheme was “10 times bigger” than Ayushman Bharat. The chief minister claimed lakhs of patients from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh visit Delhi for treatment despite the Centre’s healthcare scheme being available in the states.
The Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, which is the health insurance programme under Ayushman Bharat, was launched in September. It aims to provide health insurance cover of upto Rs 5 lakh to 500 million poor families. Several states such as West Bengal, Telangana, Odisha and Delhi have not adopted it.
Assembly elections are due in Delhi early next year. Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party had won 67 of the 70 Assembly seats in the 2015 elections.
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