Delhi Chief Minister and his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann signed a knowledge-sharing agreement between the two Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) governments Tuesday. Under this legally not enforceable agreement, the two governments will “learn and share knowledge, experiences and skills from each other for the welfare of the public”.
After signing the agreement, Arvind Kejriwal said: “I think this is a first of its kind and unique incident in the history of India. It will be wrong to say that only our government has worked for the state but different parties and governments have worked with different states and came up with several initiatives for the public welfare in the last 75 years of India’s independence but this will be the first time where two (state) governments are signing such an agreement.”
Today we signed the Knowledge Sharing Agreement with the Punjab Government, this is a new experiment in the history of India that an agreement has been made to share the knowledge. We have decided that we will learn from each other’s good deeds for the betterment of the people of Delhi and Punjab. pic.twitter.com/fO6ww426fh
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) April 26, 2022
“There are several alignments across different states and geography. But, they never learned from each other’s experiences or shared knowledge and skills with each other. Punjab CM Maan ji and his entire team are on a tour in Delhi and have visited schools, mohalla clinics and hospitals. I believe that Punjab will learn from the achievements of the Delhi government and adopt the measures to improve education, health and infrastructure of the state. And good works have been done in Punjab too and more will be done in the coming years and Delhi will learn from them,” Kejriwal added.
“Changi Chiz Jittho bhi mile Sikh leni chaide (We should learn good things from wherever we get it)”, Punjab CM Mann said. “I visited government schools, mohalla clinics and hospitals here in the last two days. During my artist days, I used to go on a tour and visited schools and hospitals in places like America and Canada. But I never saw in the students there the confidence that students here (Delhi) have. We want to take this to Punjab.”
“Punjab has acres of land where schools, sports grounds and many other things can be developed but some governments (previous ones) did not let them develop. Punjab has doctors, and teachers but there is no infrastructure,” Mann said.
“During Covid, When I wanted to donate ventilators to district hospitals, the administration said they cannot accept it because they don’t have space and doctors or specialists to operate them. They said they don’t have an anesthesia specialist and a similar incident happened when I wanted to donate a ventilator carrying an ambulance due to the lack of drivers. So, I had to donate the ventilators to big hospitals,” Mann said.
“When I visited the Rajiv Gandhi Hospital here, I saw ventilator beds lined up for patients, the general ward was developed equally to the ICU facility where any person can get treatment. In Punjab, MRI machines have pigeon nests and a nauseating smell welcomes you as you enter hospitals,” Mann added.
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