Must learn from Telangana’s Kanti Velugu: Kejriwal

Impressed by Kanti Velugu initiative, the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said he had announced his plans to replicate the programme in Delhi as well

Hyderabad: Commending the welfare programmes being implemented by Telangana, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has emphasised on the need for States to learn from each other and progress together. He felt that politics must be set aside to ensure better governance.

Addressing a press conference at the Delhi Assembly on Wednesday, Kejriwal recalled his visit to Telangana following an invitation from Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao to witness implementation of the ‘Kanti Velugu’ programme in the State. “We went to Telangana recently where about four crore population of the State was being screened for eye problems free of cost. Everyone who needs a surgery, medicines or spectacles are getting those services for free,” he said.

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Impressed by the initiative, the Delhi Chief Minister said he had announced his plans to replicate the programme in Delhi as well. He said the Kanti Velugu programme would be useful for the poor in all States and hence, he had decided to implement it in Delhi as well as Punjab. He said Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann was also impressed by the initiatives of the Telangana government in irrigation sector and hence, visited the State again to study them.

Kejriwal was responding to reporters on the ‘Progressive Chief Ministers Group’ or ‘G-8’ proposed by him. He had sent letters inviting the Chief Ministers of West Bengal, Bihar, Telangana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, and Punjab. He added that the platform was meant for the Chief Ministers to visit different States and learn from each other. “It is a governance platform and not for an alliance for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. We will go to States and learn the ideas that we can learn from each other,” he said.

Though a dinner meeting was planned to be held on March 18, it did not fructify due to prior commitments of all the Chief Ministers. He informed that the meeting was still being planned, and that an update would be provided once a final date was agreed upon. He asserted that the gathering was a work-in-progress and was likely to take place after mid-April.