We Need Innovative, Effective & Smart Social Audits

We discussed about Sensinomics earlier, in the context of petroleum price revision and its lack of sensibility in economics. I must be the nth person in the country to discuss this. However, our Governing super bureaucrats are not bothered about public or their inputs and they went on to constitute a committee to study about revision of pricing (or, was it a committee to find some digestible reasons to increase the price?). The results are obvious and pre-determined and in a nutshell, it recommends an increase of Rs. 100/- for domestic cooking gas and an increase of Rs.4/- for the diesel. This is apart from the already slotted Rs. 0.50 increase per month!

The committee to study about price revision was appointed by the ministry with consultation

and consent of these oil companies! How does this committee arrive at an unbiased conclusion? By arriving at a figure based on the financial data provided by the companies (Not by considering independently amalgamated data!) and how on the earth it becomes an independent revision exercise? On top of this, do you have any sampling done among the consumers from various strata? (No authentic information available despite multiple pleas under the provision of RTI Act). There were multiple finance wizards who came up with multi-level suggestions and none of their inputs are taken into consideration before arriving at the (il)logical conclusion.

All this adds cost to the consumer, as it gets funded by the tax payer. In fact, what’s happening in this country is that the tax payer appoints a committee with awesome fees and perks to find a reason to increase the prices of the commodities consumed by them?! Irony….! Is it not? How can we end it? In the current system we have no choice other than going to the court individually or collectively; which would take a long time to decide. In the meanwhile, the price can be increased unilaterally, unless we get a direction from the court or stay order on any price increase till the judgment is made on the matter.

In this context, we should seriously think about bringing in effective social audits in the sector, which should reflect the sensibilities of the ordinary people; among whom you come across excellent and practical ‘Sensible Economists’ or ‘Sensinomists’. How to bring this into effect needs detailed discussions. However touch points would be a multi-level approach….

First Level:

The online response platforms should be provided at each petroleum outlets which is going to be a large network. This would empower the end customer give their feedback direct and without any interference and delay.

This can also give responsive customers an opportunity to comment not just on the pricing, but on various services (or lack of those) offered by the franchisee or the companies.

Second Level:

Initiate social audits at ‘Panchayat’ level by independent people groups. This can be initiated at Gram Sabha and other social and governing bodies, where collective discussions are held to pass a resolution to be sent to the ministry with copy to companies. Akshaya Centers, JanSeva Kendras, e-Seva Kendras or such online kiosks at Panchayat levels can be utilized to send this referendum online.

Top Level:

Furthermore, it could be done by multiple Civil Society bodies at the top level. This level of participation is to bring in fresh thoughts and out of the box ideas without bereaving the essence of social justice to amicably find sustenance solutions in this energy craving globe.

This independent body with eminent economists with common sense should audit the financial data based on the international thumb rules and social data available. These interventions are expected to be transparent and consumer centric.

More would get evolved as this process progresses and it could be formalized later on to improvise every bit of this process.

To All My Brothers & Sisters of India...

My Dear Brothers & Sisters of India,

Being 'apolitical' has been a fashion or a symbol of being civilized (so called 'decency') till recently among middle class. However, of late, many people from this species realized the importance of participation in the political process and also understood the hidden agenda of the current political system which had strategically sidelined and deliberately kept away the 25%+ population of India outside active political process. In fact, the very 'apolitical' stand by this middle class of India had provided in a platter to the political hood-winkers to share seats among the goons and the influential class. I request you to kindly look around you to understand this further. Kindly post your feedback after checking out your constituency position - be it a municipal Councilor, MLC, MLA or MP. By a thumb rule, every one among them would be either an infamous goon or some influential dynasty' kid??!!  So, who's responsible for this? WE OURSELVES!

So, my dear brothers, sisters, uncles & aunties, kindly understand that it is high time to debate

and take a strong stand about the reforms required as it is a necessity of the hour and need to be welcomed. In this process of discussions and deliberations, one may come across many 'indigestible' views, but that should be taken in the best spirits and the end goal is to reach a common land/ approach which should pave way to a new beginning to eradicate criminals and dynasties from politics. Otherwise, we'll be electing criminals and goons and they would make laws to protect them (This is exactly what's happening in Parliament now). So, for heaven's sake, wake up and respond constructively as we have our last bus waiting in 2014. 

There's a huge change happening across the country and a movement is brewing exactly like in our freedom struggle days; choice is ours to become part of it or refrain ourselves. The future generation would not forgive us if we remain 'apolitical' now. We have an inspiring history to follow where our ancestors have jumped enthusiastically into the bus of freedom struggle facing hardships of their lifetime and sacrificing their normal family life. We're lucky enough that we don't have to face such hardships now, but if we leave this opportunity, our future generation would definitely be forced to face such music from these goons.

JAI HIND!

Sensinomics – In a Banana Republic (Indian Version)

This is absurd! On a fine morning, rumours were in the newspapers about the possible climb down of petrol price in the context of Rupee regaining its value graph and stability of crude oil price in the International market in the context of Syria war getting distanced; thanks to Russian intervention. However, in reality petrol price shot up overnight?! A common man with minimum economic sense would not able to comprehend the reasons cited by the ministry, as there is neither a major fall of rupee from its previous day’s position and nor that Syria situation had worsened. In fact, Syria’s position had improved with the introduction of Russia – US pact! Another important aspect is that the Rupee gained value in the context of proposed news about the control over imports. Despite all these, our petrol prices are going skywards….What’s this (black) magic?

Economic common sense or ‘Sensinomics’ does not allow me to understand/ comprehend any logic offered by the Petroleum Ministry and other concerned authorities in unison, consistently over a period of time. Their pseudo genuine reasoning against the expected price climb down is that the effect of the Rupee gain will come into reality only after one or two weeks?? But when it comes to effecting the Rupee devaluation, it happens overnight?? Moreover, in the context of stable international price and relatively stable Rupee, why there is an unprecedented price rise? Inexplicable….?!

In this scenario, the Sensinomics do not understand the reason for the absence of role of the State with firm action?! Is our Government afraid of someone to act tough or is it just the lackluster approach?  The State is expected to assure the quality of life through timely interventions for the rights of the people and here is a republic where the State looks helpless at such junctures despite collecting multiple taxes and surcharges; ever increasing…! The taxes collected for petroleum products are much higher than the subsidy offered and there is a steady graph in the last few years, where subsidy is being cut down/ delayed and the price is made dearer & dearer….! In fact, it should have been in the reverse order. Sensinomics do not state that the subsidy should be increased; but I would definitely say the taxes and surcharges should have been kept at a steady level, at least for a financial year. These ‘Once-in-15 days’ price review brings these taxes and surcharges along with it which is not envisaged in our budget and this additional revenue is neither spent for the betterment of the people nor it is used to effectively bring down the price. In fact the tax envisaged during the budget is what is actually sanctioned and it should be kept as a fixed amount even in the scenario of ‘basic price’ increase. This will at least bring some relief to the common man. 

A recent survey indicates that 62% of the total consumption of petrol amounts to two wheelers and that belongs to the massive middle class or common man of the country. Hence, the increase of petrol price to save diesel price hike does not benefit the common man; instead, it directly affect the common man by increasing his daily expenditure. Sensinomics recommend removal of the ‘uncouth gooses’ sitting for a long time at the helm of ‘(Un)Planning Commission’; who neither understand anything other than their vested interests. This is the modest word I could find in the dictionary to describe them!

If we do not respond to such atrocities, those concerned will take us for granted and keep taking us for such grand royal rides…!

Note: It is 10 days since I started writing this and this so called 'petrol price reduction' has not happened yet...?

All That Matters In Life!

It is very tricky to talk about what matters in one’s life. Personally, I would say that it is quite relational and varies from individual to individual. However, I would like to narrate something which touched me and inspired me to run over my setbacks and define what matters in life!

It was a cold morning in Shillong. I was reluctant to come out of my blanket when a loud tea call came from my friend. But then, how would he leave me happy like that when he got up and made tea in this ice cold climate? Murmuring absurd sounds, I drew myself out of blanket and walked lazily towards the dining table. My friend John was sitting there sipping the ‘Lal-sa’ (Decoction) with his head plunged into the newspaper. He seemed to have finished his routine gym and looked fresh! Now, I wanted to enjoy the Sunday by just not moving out of bed. In fact, I wanted to finish ‘Three Mistakes of My Life’ of Chetan Bhagat, which I started yesterday late in the night. John was very quick to get ready to go to church and asked me to be ready to go out with him when he comes back. Though I asked several times about the destination, he told me that it was a surprise offering to me.

I got ready at my own pace and then waited for John for some time. On a Sunny Sunday, I felt it was too long by the time he reached, but then we got off quickly to the unknown (at least to me) destination. We had our breakfast at Shillong town and carried on to down under. I was zapped to realize that he had taken me to a missionary organization which ran a residential center for special children. He introduced me to Meghna, a volunteer who had the charge of managing the center and she welcomed us and took us around the facility to explain the challenges and excitements in running such an institution. Though the infrastructure was built by the missionary group, the unit was independent and considered as a separate cost center to sustain on its own! The children were waiting there to meet us! This was the moment that I realized that our man (John) had a clear plan and everything was discussed and fixed for my visit. Meghna discussed many things and among that she wanted me to suggest a micro enterprise for sustaining the center. The children seemed to love her a lot and were reluctant to listen to anyone else. We chalked out a plan to utilize the time of the parents and the teachers to start an enterprise and compensate them as well. We had our lunch there and by the time we left the place, this young lady had left quite an impressive mark on us!

While driving back, John explained me about the background of Meghna. She was the only daughter of a multi-millionaire of the region and after doing her masters in engineering; she pursued sociology and her passion for social work. However, her father wanted her to marry and settle down and that’s when she left her home and came off to this center and started working there. She stays there in an attached guest room and she had already changed the face of the center within few months. In this era of compromises of principles to accumulate wealth, here was one lady with a mission and unconditional love for those little ones who’re created special!

That evening was really haunting and I realized what matters in life to me and Meghna’s gesture had reiterated that all that matters in life to each individual is different and reaching there should be the mission of one’s life.

A Silent Invasion

A few years back, one of my friends from Botswana told me about how African countries were economically invaded by Chinese! If you observe the incidents of recent past, one would amaze at the strategies they adopt to pursue their interests with precision planning and clinical execution. In most of the African countries, they had built infrastructure at free of cost and as a return of goodwill, flooded those markets with Chinese products (excessively produced to bring down cost of production) and they have the range of products to suit each strata of society. The usual trend is that a family would migrate and set up a small shop to sell the products and over years, they would establish a colony of shop keepers to spread their net. In the meanwhile, their Government supports them by bilateral agreements and other facilitations to cement the market forever.

In fact, in some other countries where high levels of social security measures are prevailing, the Chinese migrants’ master plans forced those countries to stop such privileges to all migrant communities! If I recall a meeting with a Chennai based investor, who was close to the TN power houses, it was Indians and that too Central Ministers from Tamil Nadu who were given the first right of refusal for building world class ITES infrastructure in Srilanka, just after the ethnic crisis was over. However, as usual we were over confident and our lethargy in decision making gifted a huge opportunity to impatiently waiting Chinese. This lapse in governance not only affected India’s business interests, but deflated strategically maintained position in a country which looked expectedly at India at each juncture of political crisis??!

China had worked hard in every industry sector and took giant leap forward in comparison with India. Though they have been vigorously trying to bridge the gap in IT industry with India, they could not achieve this according to their set targets. However, of late, what is observed is a course correction in their strategy to focus pragmatically on technologies which can be adopted fast. One among such areas of their interest is animation vertical. Close observation reveals that they had advanced well ahead and their marketing tactics is quite simple as usual. Mediocre Quality at low cost or Low Quality at lowest cost!

The global animation industry had grown fast and touched US $500 billion and in US it is now, one among the first ten industries. In Japan, it had already crossed its flagship automobile industry. China had grown faster in this sector and they are moving fast towards a silent coup like what they had done in other verticals & markets.

I had written this note after observing the content of various channels which telecast a range of animation serials. Like we watched Donald Duck, Mickey, Tom & Jerry in our childhood days, our children watch a large number of Chinese characters day-in and day-out, in every other channel which targets such young audience. I think our children are undergoing a cultural invasion through these alien characters to our culture and not surprisingly most of these animated characters come from China for obvious reasons. These channels opted for cheaper alternatives in comparison with standard Walt Disney animations. The characters and the nauseating dubbing make these animations sub-standard apart from their ugly looks. My predominant concern is the lack of logical stories for these contents and its wrong influence in these young minds, which are in their formative years.   Recently I searched for one of the award winning animations, the ‘ek chidiya anek chidiya’ which was created by Films Division of India at animation center of NCERT, which was telecasted by Doordarshan and the link is as follows….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8DZUKQClvc

If the production houses, channels and their audience don’t put their act together and bring the change to the industry, there are multiple disasters waiting for us –

1)          The slow cultural invasion which will create a Generation of morons.

2)          The China’s dominance in yet another industry, where our country can heavily contribute               with unlimited talents.

3)         The absence of passing on the rich cultural heritage and those stories we heard from                  our Grand Parents, which asserted value system in each one of us.

4)          Above all, there’s a huge but strategically silent financial drain, like in many other sectors.

Modern Drutharashtras & Suyodhanas….

In the great epic Mahabharatha, there are some dramatic scenes at the courtyard of the blind King Drutharashtra at Hastinapuri. The King & his beloved son get disturbed at the news of Pandava’s come back as they did not want to share their Power and Kingdom at any cost. Unfortunately for them, despite their best efforts to expel Pandava from the Kingdom, they came back safe in clinical frequencies framed by destiny. At each opportunity, King Drutharashtra was advised to rehabilitate Pandava and give them their Kingdom! Despite the good advises of senior mentors and wise men, the King and his pampered son never accommodated them. And the kind of intolerance they had shown towards sharing their power is the classical example of shamelessness and it should be counted as one among the first ever examples of how much people can stoop low to satisfy their own greed for the power in a civilized society!

We’re in the age of modern Drutharashtras and Suyodhanas at every walk of life; or at every corridor of Power! When minority and majority play their influence in politics, the common man wonders that who are the real beneficiaries of these so called ‘benefits’?! The minority representatives might have bargained lot of favours for them, but it is distributed among the confidants of the ‘party kings’. Most of these common people of this ‘minority’ are just spectators and they run around hard to make both ends meet. So who benefited out of these huge bargains is ambiguous; rather clear. Similarly, it is the same or more apparent in the case of majority representatives. There were major institutions allocated to these community organizations for the progress of their respective communities. In fact, it was never useful for the poor people in the community. These institutions have become money spinning tools for these organizations and over a period of time they lost the mandate to speak on behalf of respective communities. Now, there’s a sudden realization that if they don’t put their act together, they would be nowhere. But, if both of them don’t change their ways and cut down their whims & fancies and qualitatively change to serve their respective communities, people would eventually realize the truth and at a particular juncture, they would express their anger and throw these unrealistic leaders out.

Another example is that of the current cricket governors in the country! A game of great significance in a country of die-hard fans made 'Gods' of the game. This, not only made them earn multi-billion contracts but more greedy too. Eventually, the cricket governing body in India became one of the most rich and powerful in the whole world. This had paved way for all the honey bees (or Money Bees) to get attracted to the organization and to abuse it to the core for their benefits! This beeline is not just from Sports alone, but from politics too, as many of them find these sports organizations as safe zones to hang on forever without trouble.  However, arrogance pays its dividend very fast and the very people who were beside you while on the good times become the attacking enemies to save their own seats. One among them got expelled a few years back, thanks to a silly row with a minister on issuing visa to a former Brand Ambassador model from South Africa?! It is unbelievable to see an all-powerful glamour boy becomes a villain overnight and he’s in exile now, at London. In fact, this phenomenon should have given all these culprits a valuable lesson to curtail their greed or to gracefully quit. However, it does not happen so and they keep riding people till the next link gets exposed. I think that’s the very reason that these guys flex their muscles to stick on shamelessly even after they are semi-exposed as they would be wiped off from the post either by their own colleagues or they would get wiped off from this world by their unholy partners of underworld. You have classic examples like Hansie Cronje and Bob Woolmer.

If they don’t change, they’ll be forced to do so, by the millions of game lovers. If these politicians don’t change, millions would come out to change the system which would eventually throw them out forcibly?! History teaches us great lessons and the intelligent visionaries learn farsighted lessons to evolve and envisage a better system in advance! 

Nomination for BlogAdda Award

The Queen Bee and the Innocent Scapegoats

All my readers should have seen Bee Houses and the behaviour of Queen Bee. If not, kindly observe it at the next possible opportunity. I had seen my farmer friend Mohanettan shifting a complete Bee House by just capturing the Queen Bee and putting it in an empty match box and transporting it in his bike. Along with him and his bike, the entire battalion of Bees travels to the new destination!

At last, after such a huge hue & cry, Bansal had submitted his resignation. He was asked to do so by the Prime Minister. And, the Prime Minister was asked to do so by Sonia! Now, if you take this Government’s track record you will see some of the wonderful ministers had either quit under scams or still facing charges.

The crooks in politics mostly get away with their corrupt practices because they know how to tackle an accusation and also to manage an enquiry well. This had been the tradition of Indian politics across party lines for years together. Of late, when Manmohan Singh and his colleagues took charge, it was inspiring to see that many of the ministers were falling in qualified class and they were having a clean back ground. Still there were some of the veteran corruption kings as well in the ministry from both coalition parties and congress. Surprisingly, if you see the number of ministers who had to face scam charges, most of them (Not all) have been these people with clean track records?! To people who look at the surface of it, it is quite natural to feel that these people have transformed themselves at the corridors of power. But, there are quite a few unanswered queries for anyone who would like to think beyond the shallow waters…

See the scam matrix and the names and correlate it with the following queries….

Congress	S.No.	Name	Scam Gate	Remarks
	1	A K Antony	Tatra, Augusta Westland and more to come.
	2	Pawan Kumar Bansal	Railway Board appointments
	3	Ashwini Kumar	Cover Up of Investigation on Coal Gate Scam.
	4	ShashI Tharoor	Acquiring sweat equity for his girlfriend before she became his wife.
	5	P Chidambaram	2G and more to come.
	6	P C Chacko	JPC Report Adulteration
	7	Sheila Dixit	Delhi CM – Scams from CWG and so on.
	8	Salman Khurshid	As Law Minister, Scam of the trust headed by his wife came up. Tried to cover up & justify Robert Vadra during DLF Scam came up. As Foreign Affairs Minister, multiple flip ups in the case of accused Italian Naval officers who killed fisher men in Kerala.
	9	Manmohan Singh	2G, Coal Gate, Cover up of Coal Gate enquiry report, etc.

1. How can people with clean images made over their life time forego it for corrupt money which they had never touched so far in their life-time owing to the principles they upheld through their political career?
2. It is unbelievable that people who had ditched their close colleagues for being corrupt and upheld their clean image had gone berserk after money at the peak of their political careers??!
3. Sheila Dixit, just after her first term was not in the good books of Sonia, but she was loved by the people for her development works. However, after she came back for the second term, overnight political drama made her favourite of the high command and then onwards her public image declined sharply, thanks to multiple scams including the Common Wealth Games. Remember, she was the one who received appreciation for Delhi Metro ‘on time’ commissioning and she had never intervened during Mr. Sreedharan’s clean execution of the project. Her transformation into a corrupt politician after she became blue eyed baby of the high command spins lots of questions to the common people of India, naturally. In fact, there was a period when she was not sharing dais with the party President (rather vice versa) and was rumoured to resign from the CM post! 

All the above factors indicate to the involvement of the Party Leadership in successfully transforming some of the Country’s cleanest politicians into the most corrupt individuals?! We the AAM AADMI (Mango People as per Vadra’s definition) of this country should sense this as a wakeup call as British had looted India for centuries together after Moguls.  Beware, now it is time for another to loot India, if we do not wake up and resist. 

Induction of Culture – Limitless & Unconditional Methods

After a long gap, I had the opportunity to be there for the temple festival at Pallassana, which was an integral part of our lives during our childhood. It was nostalgic to watch Sri. Chandrasekhara Varrier’s awesome performance with his natural ease!  It was exciting to meet M/s. Unnikrishnan, Narayanan and Madhu after quite some time. Witnessing the stamps of time on each of them had inspired me to search for lost hair locks on my head as well!!

However, it was sad to notice that the number of days of Kathakali performance had been cut down to three instead of traditional five due to poor turnout of audience. Even for these three days, the audience presence was 1/4^th of its usual turnout?! When we discussed about it, there have been many reasons popping out for this deterioration (which has been gradual over last 3 – 4 years) and felt very sorry about the state of affairs.

The inspiration for writing this note was actually something very interesting and different. This is a reiteration of what I have been advocating earlier in my article regarding induction of culture; http://indpad.blogspot.in/2012/02/inducing-culture-in-young-minds.html . I wrote that post after watching an interview of Sri. Vellodi (The first Indian Ambassador to Tanzania) and I mentioned there that we Pallassanites are lucky to get such cultural induction through these temple festivities and performing arts, which is actually missing in the current system of education. In fact, Mr. Vellodi was very logically insisting on introduction of such a subject in the syllabus of the current education system.

Coming back to ‘Kalithattu’ (The stage where Kathakali is performed), I met Mr. Benedict ^* , (who’s at least 5+ years junior to me in school) at this temple ground watching Kathakali with his wife and children. I was meeting him after at least 5 years, though his parents lived quite nearby! But the most amazing fact was the revelation that he’s been quite a fan of ‘Kathakali Padhams’ (the verses) and I was awestruck at the knowledge he was having on the subject and my interaction became more interesting when he told that he had gone to Kottakkal and other places to watch Kathakali  performances! It was all the more refreshing to see the entire family there and he told me that his wife insisted on seeing Kathakali as she had heard quite a lot from him and became curious to know more about it. I also realized that such classical folk arts have audience at various planes which, ordinary people like me would find very difficult to express, because in the midst of our interaction, he was getting impatient when artistes started performing ‘Manodharmam’ as he was keen to listen to the verses! Earlier, he even explained some of the verses for me as I couldn’t make out from the recital by Sri. Narayanan. Then I moved onto the front side of the stage, where the crowd was very less unlike my earlier experiences! Standing on the side, I was watching beautiful Manodharmam by Sri. Varrier and I met Kuttan, one of the connecting links of our generation with all these festivities. I was introduced to Sri. Kesavan Kundliar (Very famous for his ‘Parasurama’), who was offering a live explanation of the meaning of the Manodharmam performed on the stage, which made it more interesting. He had also discussed regarding various ‘Shlokas’ on which ‘Manodharmam’ is based. Now, I could feel the next plane of sensitivity which is more comprehensive and enjoyable.

These experiences enhanced my conviction about the cultural thread these festivities used to play in all our lives despite our diverse socio-economic-religious backgrounds. These festivities contributed a lot to induce and nurture culture inside each of us, unconditionally. Whether the organizers knew it or not, this played a pivotal role in moulding our characters!! I think it is time now for all of us to give back this limitless love to the society for the sake of our younger generation, unconditionally.

Every art form had undergone tremendous changes in order to sustain itself and to keep it updated and attractive to the changing pattern of interests and sensitivity planes of its audiences. While in Hyderabad, during some interstate cultural exchange programme, I had seen a lot of welcome experiments with effective use of technology in classical art forms like ‘Chakyar Koothu’ etc., where they introduced a side screen with the dialogues and live explanations of ‘Mudras’ performed on stage. It was very useful even for those who were watching it for the first time. We should also provide proper seating arrangements for the audience to encourage them to come to such public places. Let’s do our best to retain this intuitive fiber created by the legends of the past.

(^*The original names are changed in order to respect the privacy of the individuals.)

Growth Management in Hospitals

Last few months have been ‘Hospital Season’ for me, thanks to health issues of own self and others, one after the other! This used to happen very often in my life since very young age and I have developed an expertise in hospital care & support services with some basic understanding of many do’s and don’ts, while in hospital. I don’t know how many people agree with me when I say that there are many skill sets required to effectively assist an in – patient of a hospital as a by-stander. I had developed some of those required skill – sets over a period of time and could use this expertise effectively to avoid many mishaps!

I shall give you some sample scenarios for you to understand the importance of above said requirement of skill – sets.

1)   This was quite a long time back in a super specialty hospital in Coimbatore, where I was a by-stander for one of my close relatives, who was admitted there after a series of cardiac arrests, brought there after unnecessary complications created by some of the old time famous local hospitals of Palakkad (They don’t exist now).  On the 3^rd day of admission, the patient was shifted to the room after some very critical moments in the ICU. The patient was found diabetic and asked to completely avoid sugar and I went out to fetch medicines from the nearby pharmacy after the Doctor’s visit. In the meanwhile, the dietician and a duty nurse visited the patient and for some odd reasons, they had a different patient profile with them. They asked to purchase baby food and lots of protein rich food for the patient along with another set of medicines. When I came back the patient handed over another list of item to be bought for him. I went through the diet chart (even the patient diet was to be administered by the duty nurse as per the hospital system) and the corresponding list of medicines and food supplements. Immediately I had a doubt and rushed to the doctor’s cabin and shown him the list. The doctor called both the nurse and the dietician and gave a piece of his mind for the blunder they had done. It would have been a disaster if it was not brought to Doctor’s notice as the patient who is already weak and whose heart was going through a recovery process, would have struggled further by sudden shoot up in the sugar levels in the blood. This hospital was in the initial stages of growth at that point of time. Now, they are one among the veterans in the industry.

2)      Very recently, I had been in a leading hospital of Palakkad, again as by-stander. Even before my relative got admitted I had to accompany her regularly for various diagnosis processes. It was here my Mom underwent a minor surgery, years back and the quality of services and the cleanliness were appreciated very much on those days. However, the whole scenario is changed now, as years passed by….! It is overcrowded and the expansion (construction) is already on and it was quite difficult to get a room there and at last when we got a shared accommodation, we realized the pathetic state of its affairs. In fact, I was left alone at this room when my relative was undergoing a surgery and the other patient in the adjacent bed got discharged. When the housekeepers came to clean the room, I asked them to just dampen the cloth and wipe the partition and when they did that, all those basic stains vanished and it looked new. They themselves were appreciating each other for the new look of this wooden partition. It reflects that there’s a clear gap in supervision of the process.

3)      Another funny incident was that when I requested for a room to one of the front office managers, he was expressing his helplessness and then carried on to mention that many a times, he had helped people and once the room is given, then there would be numerous complaints regarding the facilities. I understood his intolerance about the grievances and also it was sad to realize that the man who’s employed to resolve the issues thinks that he had done a favour by allotting a room to the client?! Above all, having received a favour of getting an accommodation, you are not supposed to demand quality of service…..? Are we living in ‘Banana Republic’?

4)      Another incident is at a practicing local clinic of an integrated health scheme of defense forces, where the crowd is multifold than its optimum capacity. There are lots of systems and processes, but still it should be appreciated about the way it has been handled. There is a whole gamut of scope for improvement, but then with the current facilities and limited manpower, they are doing their best!

5)      The best example was yet to come! I had to be at RCC, Thiruvananthapuram with my relative and then I realized what growth management is and I came across the effectiveness of one of the intuitive employee orientation programme! We keep boasting about various HCM (Human Capital Management) initiatives at corporate places and take pride in providing the best motivation to the manpower through most pampering methods! However, I witnessed more meaningful HCM initiatives at RCC, though it is a Govt. of India undertaking and most of the employees are permanent with assured salaries regardless of their performance! I don’t say that everything is perfect and flawless here and of course, there’s huge scope for re-engineering of certain processes with the modern perspectives. But then, given the volume and crowd they are handling, I have limited words to express my awe towards each one of them!! Once again, the most distinctive characteristic about this place is the soft words they utter to the people who visit here, despite the huge work pressure they carry and this quality is uniform across the staff right from the top to the bottom.

I have only one suggestion to all those corporate hospitals: Realize your growth and empower your employees to effectively manage that growth through consistent trainings. Otherwise, the growth will turn out to be negative!