Bringing government closer to people AAP’s biggest achievement: Sisodia

New Delhi, Feb 14 (IANS) The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government's biggest achievement is bridging the gap between peoples' aspirations and the government's priorities, Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said on Tuesday.

Sisodia said people of Delhi sent the AAP to power with a sweeping majority in February 2015 to fix the "big disconnect" between people and the government.

Listing achievements of the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government which started its third year on Tuesday, Sisodia said: "People of Delhi dreamt big when they gave us 67 of the 70 seats. We have been able to deliver on that dream by fixing the disconnect between the way of life in our country and the priorities of governance."

The AAP leader said the biggest worry of the common man is health of his close ones and education of his children.

"But governments always had different priorities. They wanted to build bridges and flyovers. In the last two years, we have changed that," he added.

Sisodia said the aim of his government was to bring quality of education to such a level that when children of today grew up, they would need "minimum governance".

The AAP government, in its first budget since coming to power, doubled the education budget and increased the health budget by half.

The Deputy Chief Minister said if the AAP got a historic mandate from the people of Delhi, it also got "historic resistance" from political quarters.

"The mandate, the work done, the harassment suffered by our MLAs; everything has been historic in the last two years.

"But despite that, people across the country acknowledge that ours is a government which is not corrupt. Our critics can find procedural deficiencies in our work, but they cannot find financial lapses," Sisodia said.

Earlier, presenting the report card of his ministry, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said the Kejriwal government had so far shifted 5,000 families from various slums to newly-built flats.

He said the government worked relentlessly to make Delhi open defecation free. Around 8,000 toilets have been built so far, out of which 633 new toilets were inaugurated on Tuesday.

"We managed to give 24x7 power supply to Delhi despite reducing power tariff at a time when they have been hiked across the nation. Today, Delhi has the lowest tariff among all states," Jain said.

Apart from building around 110 Mohalla Clinics in the city, the government had also set up 26 polyclinics so far.

Medicines, medical tests and consultation are available for free at all these clinics as well as in Delhi government hospitals.

Jain, a Kejriwal confidant, said the government had also saved hundreds of crores of rupees while building many flyovers to make people's commute shorter and more pleasant.

Labour Minister Gopal Rai said the government was relentlessly working to hike minimum wages for labourers from Rs 9,000 to Rs 14,000 per month.

"We faced a lot of hurdles but we hope to roll out the hike this month," Rai said.

Rai credited Delhi government officials for implementing the government's plans while "standing strong against all tortures" to work towards Delhi's development.

"I can proudly say we will deliver all our promises in just four years. And we will even deliver what we didn't promise," he added.

Water Minister Kapil Mishra said the government is on its way to deliver on its promise of providing piped water supply to all households.

"We have already provided piped water to 309 additional unauthorised colonies, bringing its total to 1,103 out of 1,797 colonies. Work is going on in other such colonies as well," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Social News XYZ staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)