AHMEDABAD: Ahead of the local body elections, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) announced it will ‘replicate’ it’s mohalla clinic model in Gujarat, providing basic healthcare services, by launching a mohalla clinic in Ahmedabad last month. Barely 10 days on, and presumably flustered by the AAP move, the state government announced a similar health project for the urban poor, saying such health centres will be called Deendayal clinics.
Both announcements came even as the dates for the local body elections were to be announced.
A month later, the reality is that none of the mohalla clinics are functional, even as AAP says they were started “on a trial basis” only. As far as the Deendayal clinics are concerned, nothing has happened after the announcement. Both projects are aimed at providing healthcare facilities in densely populated slums.
A senior officer in the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation said that the proposal to set up Deendayal clinics is at the approval stage. “The clinics have not been started yet. The matter is at the approval stage right now,” said the official. In December last year, deputy CM Nitin Patel had said the clinics “would be started on priority basis and AMC will be asked to finalise the places where they can be started.”
AAP state media convener Tuli Banerjee said the mohalla clinics had been started on a trial basis for a short period of time.