The Delhi government will use portable containers to construct the city’s new mohalla clinics. The clinics built with containers can be assembled and disassembled quickly and also fit into tight spaces. The construction of the first such clinic is already underway at Health Minister Satyender Jain’s assembly constituency of Shakur Basti.

Mohalla clinics are a huge part of the Aam Aadmi Party’s agenda. These neighbourhood primary health centres offer basic essential health services such as diagnostics, medicines, and consultation for free. The clinics also serve as the first point of contact, offer on-time services, and cut down the referral load to secondary and tertiary health care centres. Patients to these high-tech clinics know the results of most tests within two minutes. These test results are then uploaded onto an IT cloud that the patient and doctors can access on their smartphones.

When the Aam Aadmi Party returned to power in 2015, it had made the promise to construct 1,000 such clinics all over the city. However, acquiring land to build the clinics has been a problem. The difficulty in land procurement meant that the government has been able to construct only 500 clinics so far.

The clinic being built at Shakur Basti is utilising a shipping container. It is being built to have modular interiors and is much narrower than previous designs.

A Delhi government official said procuring land and finding spaces in congested areas have a problem in constructing the clinics.

The official added that the clinics need to be built in areas where people live, and not in secluded spots. The new structures can not only be built much quicker than permanent structures, but also occupy less space and are designed such that it utilises that space well.

All clinics that will be operationalised from now will use this design, the government official said.

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