Hyderabad: The Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s impressive victory in Delhi’s Assembly polls has inspired Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy to focus on providing cheap education and health to people. He has taken the latest decision to set up village level health clinics from next April. These clinics will be called “YSR Village Health Clinics”, named after his late father Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy.

Jagan, who summoned a meeting of medical and health officials at his chambers in the Secretariat on Thursday, directed the officials to consider villages, with every 2,000 population as a unit and set up a health clinic for people of that area. A nurse with the qualification of BSc (Nursing) will be appointed to provide first aid, another primary care to patients.

If the medical problem is serious, the patients will be sent to the nearest primary health centre, which may be available for every five to 10 villages to a tertiary hospital at the district level. Adequate medicines and medical equipment would be placed at these village clinics so that the nurses can test patients well. If necessary, more than one village clinic will be set up in big villages.

This idea is emulated from the mohalla clinics in Delhi which helped Kejriwal come back to power for a third term. A team of officials from Andhra Pradesh had visited the Delhi clinics and prepared a similar health care system in the state too. “The idea is to save poor and unaffordable sections of people from the clutches of private hospitals which charge a bomb even for a minor ailment,” a senior health official said.

Jagan, while chairing this meeting, told the officials to see that poorer sections of people need not spend even a single rupee at these clinics. “We should see that every patient should be treated well and given proper care and basic medicines without any fee. They also should not travel distances for small medical problems,” the Chief Minister said.

Senior officials in the medial and health department who spoke to this newspaper on Friday said that the Chief Minister’s plan was to increase the footprint of public health care in rural areas so that people would be spared of higher medical bills. “High medical costs have become a problem for rural distress and Chief Minister wants us (government) to fill the gap,” said an official preferring anonymity.

At the same time, Jagan also wants to strengthen tertiary and super-specialty hospitals in each of 25 Lok Sabha segments. He directed the officials to see that there are teaching hospitals in all Lok Sabha seats. There is a provision in the recent Union budget to set up medical hospitals in select interior districts under the public private partnership. The Andhra Pradesh government is planning to make use of this opportunity.

Not only Delhi, but neighbouring Telangana, too, holds some promise of people supporting cheaper medical care at their doorsteps. For instance, the KCR-led Telangana government’s scheme of providing free eye testing and dental camps in rural areas before the 2018 Assembly elections paid rich political dividends to TRS. Around 40 lakh people had benefitted out of these camps in Telangana.

Now, Jagan, too, wants to roll out these schemes in Andhra. To begin with, the AP government will offer free dental camps to around 60 lakh school going children. Every student would be provided with free tooth brush and tooth paste. This drive, called “Dr YSR Smile” will be taken up from 8 July, the birth anniversary of late Chief Minister YSR.

Already, Jagan has started free eye testing camps in rural and urban areas and the feedback from the public was good. Affordable health care at the door steps of the poor and quality healthcare at tertiary hospitals level for the middle-class is expected to yield rich political dividends. A majority of petitions for the CM Relief Fund are related to seeking money for medical costs. Already, Chief Minister Jagan has initiated steps to improve government-run schools in Andhra. He launched drive called “Nadu, Nedu” (Then and Now) where photos will be taken of schools in 2019 and 2020, comparing the infrastructure and other improvements in the schools. Jagan also released funds for basic facilities like drinking water and sanitation in government schools.