Delhi health minister holds emergency meet on rising swine flu cases

Assuming charge of his portfolios, Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain held an emergency review meeting on Saturday with officials on rising cases of swine flu in the national capital and directed them to take a few steps to check the spread of the virus.

Assuming charge of his portfolios, Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain held an emergency review meeting on Saturday with officials on rising cases of swine flu in the national capital and directed them to take a few steps to check the spread of the virus.

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"As the number of swine flu cases are on the rise, government is concerned. We held a meeting with the department officials and instructed them to take steps like distributing pamphlets consisting of dos and don'ts in schools, offices and colleges. "Swine flu is a self limiting disease, so the idea is to spread as much as awareness as possible to make people vigilant and alert about the disease," Jain told reporters.

He also stressed that changes will be carried out in hospitals and the "flaws rectified", which he had noticed during his previous tenure as the 49-day health minister.

While assuming charge of his office, Jain said that it was his 50th working day and not his first day in the office.

"I don't consider it to be my first day in office, it is my 50th working day as we had resigned after being in government for 49 days.

"Also, it is the same date (February 14) on which we had quit and that we have resumed work again," said Jain who was given portfolios of power, health, industries, gurudwara management, irrigation and flood control, public works department.

Jain further said government will soon come up with a plan to build 20 new colleges and two lakh public toilets across the national capital, as promised in AAP 70 point manifesto.

"Officials of Delhi government's IT department have been directed to immediately prepare a foolproof action plan to provide free Wi-Fi across the city as it was a main poll agenda of AAP," said a senior government official.

The official also said that IT department's officials have been given three to four days to complete the task.

Apart from IT department, PWD officials have also been directed to make an action plan to fulfil Aam Aadmi Party's promises.

"Officials of PWD will come out with a strong plan on how to build 20 new colleges and two lakh toilets in different parts of the city.

A team of department's officials has been formed to execute the plan," a senior Delhi government official said. He also said they will fulfill their promise of slashing power tariff by half, though he refrained from giving the time frame within which it will be done.