Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday inaugurated a platform called ‘Delhi@2047’ in an attempt to foster partnerships with the private sector (CSR initiatives) and philanthropic organisations and achieve the vision for ‘Delhi by 2047.’
Mr. Kejriwal said the government was not approaching the sector hoping it would “just write cheques” but needed their ideas, expertise, participation and partnership to realise the dreams everyone had for Delhi. Mr. Kejriwal spoke at a virtual meeting, which had representatives from various corporate entities.
Leader of Opposition Ramvir Singh Bidhuri said the slogan Delhi@2047 was “hollow and misleading” and the Capital’s citizens were suffering due to the “directionless policies” and “lack of vision” of the AAP Delhi government.
The platform was launched in the presence of Jasmine Shah, Vice Chairperson, Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi, Rajiv Bajaj, MD, Bajaj Auto and Banmali Agrawala President – Infrastructure, Defence & Aerospace and Global Corporate Affairs Tata Sons Private Limited.
Abhimanyu Munjal, CEO, Hero Finance Corp & Chairman-Northern Region, CII, and, Subhrakant Panda, MD, Indian Metals and Ferro Alloys Ltd, (IMFA) & Vice President, FICCI were also present.
“I am very delighted to launch the Delhi@2047 platform. We had presented a small glimpse of our dream for Delhi@2047 in the assembly while presenting the budget. Delhi, being the national capital, is like a gateway where people first arrive in India and then go to other places. People see India through Delhi. We have to develop Delhi as a global city,” Mr. Kejriwal said.
“There are a lot of things we need to fix in Delhi. We have to prepare a roadmap for how Delhi will be in 2047, when the country will complete 100 years. We had a vision in our budget this year for this point of view so we can start working towards it,” he said further.
In the last 5 years, Mr. Kejriwal said, the Delhi government had shown it can find solutions if one had personal will as well as political will to make it happen. In education, he said, there had been substantial progress and a Delhi Sports University and a Delhi Skill & Entrepreneurship University had been started among other achievements.
Similarly, he said, a lot was done in the field of health: government hospitals which were in “a despicable state” were “fixed”, Mohalla Clinics were started, a network of polyclinics was formulated to provide a ‘Health Suraksha Chakra’ for each citizen to make accessing complete healthcare absolutely free.
“We progressed a lot in the electricity sector. Today, electricity is supplied for 24 hours. We worked with the same electricity companies as the previous governments did, the difference is of political will,” he stated.
“We worked a lot in the finances division and fixed them. The CAG report that came last year stated that the Delhi Government is the only state government in the country which is making a profit,” he added.
There was, however, Mr. Kejriwal conceded, a lot left to be done on which the government was working. The roads of Delhi were, the chief minister stated, very wide but not of good quality and not designed well.
The government wanted to make these roads at par with European standards and had started with 500 kilometres of roadworks and would work on more roads soon to eventually make all roads in Delhi at par with European standards.
“We want that water supplies in Delhi go on 24x7. We want that when one turns on a tap in the city they get drinking water from it like in European nations. We need to work on the transport system and fix that. Our motive is to transform our entire transport system and run it on electricity instead of fuel,” he added.
“We are not coming to you to write cheques, we need your ideas, we need your expertise, we need your participation and we need your partnership. We need to work on this together and make Delhi the city of our dreams, so when we look at our city in 2047 we can say we are proud of Delhi” he concluded.
On his part, Mr. Bidhuri alleged development activity in Delhi had come to a standstill and no new development projects had been taken up or executed during the last seven years.
“Due to the directionless policies and lack of vision of the AAP government, the problems confronting Delhi are getting aggravated. The second Corona virus wave unleashed a wave of death and destruction as people lost their loved ones due to lack of ICU beds, healthcare facilities and oxygen in hospitals,” Mr. Bidhuri alleged.
“During the past seven years, no new hospital has been opened or constructed in Delhi and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal claims that a revolution has taken place in the healthcare sector. Not a single new school had been opened in the last seven years and only ornamental changes had been made to the school buildings in some areas,” he also alleged.
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