Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray stated in State Assembly, the Mahavikas Aaghadi (MVA) Government is for rickshawalas and not for bullet train users. Sticking to what he said in the House, his colleague Minister Eknath Shinde brought ‘Aadarniya Balasaheb Thackeray Aapla Dawakhana’ project. This Dawakhana is probably the idea taken from Delhi’s ‘Mohalla Clinic’ will operate only in slums and the people there get total free health service.

It is the idea of Eknath Shinde, now an important Minister in MVA. But he came up with this idea long back and now the project got momentum. While talking to ‘The Hitavada’ Shinde said, “Primarily it will be run in slums come under Municipal Corporation ambit. We have asked roughly 250 sq. Ft area in slums identified by the respective Municipal Corporations. The project will be given to private operator. Setting up small clinic, appointing doctors, availing medicines and equipment every responsibility will lie on the agency. We will provide money earmarked for the project.”

 

 

At present 60 clinics have been identified in Maharashtra with Mumbai 11, Thane 10, Nashik 6, Latur, Kalyan-Dombivali, Nagpur, Chandrapur, Ulhas Nagar each 5, Mira-Bhainder, Amravati 3, Vasai-Virar will have two clinics.

Rs 30 will be given per patient for check-up. 70 patients will be attended in 25 days in a month. Every hospital will have equipment like Tab, cloud-based software, server, printer. Till now Rs 37,500 have been sanctioned. Monthly approximately 1,250 patients will avail the benefit of Aapla Dawakhana. The annual estimated cost is Rs 301.5 lakh while purchases of Rs 157.5 lakh have been approved.

 

Dr Satish Pawar, Director, Public Health Services informed, “We are getting good response from all the Municipal Corporations. We have not met higher officials in Corporations, but we will start doing that. It

will be a good project as far as taking health services to the poor is concerned.”

 

Shinde remarked, “As promised by Chief Minister in House that the Government would work for the poor, we gave immediate result. Till now nobody had thought about this particular sector of the society who remained deprived and healthcare is an important aspect.”