Arvind Kejriwal orders repair of roads

New Delhi: Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, on Friday, directed chief secretary M.M. Kutty to ensure that all PWD roads were repaired in the city before July 31. In a separate letter, the Delhi CM has also asked the chief secretary to urgently help identify land for setting up 850 mohalla clinics.

In a letter to Mr Kutty, Mr Kejriwal candidly talked about the terrible condition of roads of the Public Works Department (PWD) and issued the instructions. “Some of the PWD roads in Delhi are in pretty bad shape and need urgent repairs. The chief secretary is directed to ensure repair of all such roads by July 31,” Mr Kejriwal said.

He said the Delhi government had already provided adequate budget for the repair of these roads. “The PWD secretary himself should inspect the roads thereafter, and satisfy himself, after which myself and the PWD minister (Satyendar Jain) will randomly inspect,” he said. In July 2016, a man had died after his motorcycle hit a pothole in South Delhi.

Meanwhile, Mr Kejriwal in a separate letter to Mr Kutty said that the Delhi government was committed to building 1,000 Mohalla Clinics of which 150 had been constructed so far. Mr Kejriwal said the health secretary has informed him that the health department was “not getting land” to construct the remaining 850 mohalla clinics.

“The Chief secretary is directed to coordinate with all the departments, who own land (like education, DJB, DUSIB, PWD) and these 850 pieces of land, equally distributed all over Delhi, should be identified urgently to construct mohalla clinics,” Mr Kejriwal said.

“The chief secretary should identify these plots of land by June 30,” he added.

Mohalla clinic is the Delhi government’s flagship scheme, which has been praised by several countries across the globe.