Kejriwal attends online meet of global cities to discuss COVID-19

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday attended a global meet of C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group to discuss the coronavirus outbreak where he spoke about the steps taken in the national capital to control the spread of the pandemic. "This is a crisis of unprecedented scale and we are committed to learn and collaborate with leaders across the world. Together, we will win," Kejriwal said at the meeting held through video conferencing, according to a statement. Representing Delhi and India at the meet, the chief minister said the national capital has aggressively pursued the policy of identifying contacts of COVID-19-affected patients and isolating them, the statement said.

According to the statement, the chief minister was joined by top leaders of several megacities from around the world, such as mayors of Los Angeles (Eric Garcetti), Seoul (Won-soon Park), Paris (Anne Hidalgo), Milan (Guiseppa Sala), Istanbul (Ekrem Imamoglu) and Rome (Virginia Raggi), among the 45 mayors who were present at the meet. "Delhi has less than 40 COVID-19 positive cases to date, after 25 days of when the first case was detected," Kejriwal was quoted as saying.

He said the economic fallout of the lockdown has disproportionately impacted the city's poor, especially migrant workers from across the country who live in Delhi. The CM also said the Delhi government is paying Rs 5,000 to every construction worker as sustenance allowance.