‘Flier’ friendly government
It has been some time since good, simple folks like you stuck on terra firma, got to read about the globe trekking exploits of our montris and babus which I had covered extensively up to October 2007 (flying expenses only) in this column. And I mean you being grounded, in a nice way of course, because neither do you get an insurance-backed health plan like they do in the western world, nor does the government provide you with flight-paid-for holidays; though government employees do get a pretty fancy dole called leave travel allowance. But then, they are the chosen ones, not you. Here are some more recent flying exploits of our official flying class in 2007-8 and 2008-09, this time giving the entire expenditure incurred on the junkets. Fasten your seat belts please and be ready for takeoff seated in what I would think is your balcao armchair I guess you can call your home simulator, because my friend, simulation is all you get while they get to do the real flying.
Have country will fly
Anupam Kishore, joint secretary (DMU) –Singapore –Rs 1,05,895, Dattaram Sardessai, joint secretary (finance) – Zurich, Dusseldorf – Rs 1,44,057, Dubai – Rs 82,000; Dayanand Narvekar, minister, finance/IT – London, Sao Paulo, Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro – Rs 5,14, 054; Anand Prakash, development commissioner – Zurich, Dusseldorf – Rs 1,68,254, Dubai – Rs 82,000; Uddipta Ray, secretary (finance) – Kathmandu – Rs 33,033; Alban Couto, advisor to government – Hong Kong – Rs 19,466; VK Jha, secretary (industries) – Dubai Rs 98,262, South Korea – Rs 25,816; Prakash N Dessai, chairman, GPSC – London – Rs 2,95,393; Agnelo Fernandes, chairman, EDC – New York – Rs 1,84,454.
Department of Tours
The Department of Tourism will not solve the shack problem despite all the official baloney about helping enterprising Goans; it will do nothing about keeping the beaches clean; provide walkable footpaths on the celebrated but much abused and battered beaches. Grandiose plans have been made at great expense by consultants from outside Goa and put on ice; by virtually every incumbent minister of tourism and Goa Tourism Develoment Corporation (GTDC) chairman has come out with some inspiration or the other. Some after expensive study tours abroad with their entourage in tow. Many of their plans you know well, as they have been well documented and oft repeated. These I think are gems, I think you might have easily have forgotten. Sometimes amnesia is good for the blood pressure!
In mid 2006, the GTDC said it intended to upgrade its chain of resorts to three-star category. With a dozen resorts, it wanted to add swimming pools to its existing properties along the coastline. Its chairperson, Fatima D’Sa, said, “We plan to make our resorts one of the best beach resorts in the country and create a niche in the hospitality sector across the country with low tariffs.” LoL (if you are not clued to SMS lingo, it means laugh out loud). Remember, the ‘Heritage House Scheme’, well all it did was inherit dust on some shelf in the tourism department. Or, a mantelpiece, maybe! So, why do our montris and babus travel abroad, which is why the tourism department can also be called department of tours? They of course swear these are missions to bring more tourists to Goa. Put that down as flights of fancy. But that’s Goa in a nutshell. Just look at the front page of your daily each morning. It’s all about ageing has-beens and mediocre actors, producers flying into Goa for the International Film Festival of India thanks to your tax money which these days is taking another whipping thanks to the galloping prices of your basic cooked-at-home food.
Flights of fancy?
Francisco (Micky) Pacheco, minister, tourism/housing – London – Rs 6,66,875, London – Rs 3,32,637, JP Singh; chief secretary – Shanghai – Rs 62,956, Frankfurt, Lisbon – Rs 2,50,794, Frankfurt, Berlin – Rs 4,94,981, New York – Rs 3,73,499, incurring a total expenditure of Rs 11,82,230; M. Moddasir, secretary (tourism) – Dubai – Rs 1,57,424, London – Rs 1,18,798, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai – Rs 1,40,046, Zurich, Madrid, Frankfurt – Rs 1,48,463, Shanghai – Rs 55,274, Dubai, London – Rs 1,75,652, incurring a total expenditure of Rs 7,95,657; Pamela Mascarenhas, dy. Director – Berlin – Rs 1,37,503; Arvind Loliyenkar, director of tourism – New York - Rs 72,738, London – Rs 1,68,997; Elvis Gomes, director of tourism – Lisbon 1,36,497; Anthony J D’Souza, officer on special duty (O.S.D) – Lisbon -1,64,452; Anthony J D’Souza, O.S.D – Lisbon, Madrid – Rs 2,14,749, VGS Navelkar, assistant director – Rs 1,62,649; Elvis Gomes – Dubai – Rs 60,943; JN Sangodkar, assistant director – Berlin – Rs 1,74,847; Elvis Gomes –Moscow – Rs 97,495; Hanumant Parsenkar, deputy director – Almaty, Kazakhstan – Rs 73,068; Elvis Gomes – Moscow – Rs 1,10,610; London – Rs 1,33,865; Pamela Mascarhenas –Lisbon – Rs 1,31,854; Swapnil M Naik, director of tourism – Berlin – Rs 1,48,852; Pamela Mascarhenas – Berlin – Rs 1,36,990; Francisco (Micky) Pacheco – New York – Rs 1,84,454; Sanjit Rodrigues, MD, GTDC – Sri Lanka – Rs 48,088; Shyam Satardekar, chairman, GTDC – London – Rs 3,06,381, Portugal – Rs 2,28,918, Moscow – Rs 2,07,197; Benjamin Braganza, MD, GTD – Portugal – Rs 1,69,818, Moscow – Rs 1,66,669. All that dizzy travel cost a huge Rs 6,41,5,033. The garbage meanwhile accumulates in hideous heaps alongside the roads and lanes that lead to the beaches that may have cost less to clean than the GTDC chairman’s trips to London and Lisbon.
Notice too, how most trips are to Dubai, London and Lisbon. My humble opinion is that NRGs might come from Lisbon, but tourists? So why go there to woo them when they will come anyway. And Dubai? Why? Is everyone going there to learn how Dubai has crashed world financial markets this week after it sought a six-month reprieve on debt payments that risked triggering the biggest sovereign default since Argentina’s financial crash in 2001? And London, unless it is to learn how to wind up Big Ben, why would anyone go to invite tourists? Remember we conquered that frontier, evidenced by the number of charters that land at Dabolim, at least 25 years ago?
(Feedback 2280935, 9822152164 lionroars.goa@gmail.com)
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Russian Roulette
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
The director general of police Bhim Singh Bassi and the inspector general of police KD Singh could go down as the two funniest cops that hit town ever (Funny not in a ha ha way!) Bassi defended the Russian belly dance sizzle (apparently Belgian too) at the new police station at Anjuna as not being ‘indecent’. Singh said he saved the taxpayer Rs 3,00,000. Then like Russian Roulette and having fired the first chamber, it hit them. Now, they had to fire all the five remaining. What we got was a ‘belly’ full and finally the last rather weak shot, BLASPHEMY – ‘going to casinos is like going to temples or churches’ – snapped up eagerly by Manohar Parrikar. Only he (Parrikar) got it right. What next Mr. Bassi? A ‘Full Monty’ at police headquarters to raise funds denied you by the Centre for a commando force?
Three questions still dog me though: why was virtually half the second rung brass invited to the m.v Casino Royale, why didn’t their families go along too, after all, cops take their families to temples and churches and finally, why did Yogi, the event organizer based in Delhi agree to fly down an entire troupe of belly dancers, who don’t come cheap in the first place, and that would include putting them up in an expensive hotel? What’s in it for him, or is Yogi like the friendly fast talking Yogi Bear created by Hanna-Barbera Productions. Nah, doesn’t happen in India. There’s got to be a catch here somewhere.
'Police Academy’ of another kind
It happens all the time. Non-Goans get to take all those lucrative jobs (!) going abegging at the industrial estates, though as you will see soon, there aren’t too many on offer. Goan job seekers and entrepreneurs seemed hemmed in from all sides – they couldn’t even bid to keep our police entertained as the Anjuna gig proved. Here is a list of industry biggies of the kind Aleixo Sequeira said would give Goans jobs, if only we let them in, never mind if they trample all over us. The list given to me by the Voice of Villagers, Nagoa, gives the number of ‘contract’ workers employed at the Verna industrial estate, which the organization that opposes any further massive and unplanned expansion of the industrial estate, obtained under Right to Information. Shockingly, the data reveals that 2,421 contracted workers (daily wagers) were supplied by 72 labour contractors in the two years to April 30, 2007 when the data was issued. The deputy labour commissioner, Margao stated clearly he did not know how many of these contracted workers were Goan. His office did not maintain a job profile record of the contracted workers. In fact his office did not even have basic data. The list: Ratiopharm -25, Ratiopharm -18, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories -10, Cipla -20, Sanofi Aventie -10, Cipla -20, Cipla -15, Lupin -16, Glenmark Lab -20, Glenmark Lab -10, Ratiopharm -40, Ratiopharm -100, Ratiopharm -18, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories -15, Marksan Pharma -20, Cipla -50, Lupin -150, Marksons Pharma -20, Marksons -30, Cipla -25, Glenmark -20, Ratiopharm 40, Marksons Pharma 40, Watson Pharma -15, Sanofi Synthelabo -150, Watson Pharma -10, Erica Lifescience -150, Ratiopharma -25, Aventis Pharma -50, Lupin -40, Lupin -25, Watson Pharma -20, Sonafi Synthelabs -19, Sonafi Synthelabs -20, Micro Labs -25. The repetition in the number of companies is because these companies have bifurcated themselves for obvious reasons and deal separately with different labour contractors.
Don’t think these MNCs and big players would have added to their work force since then. They don’t because what the MNCs which have global footprints (including some Indian companies) have in Goa, are basically assembly line productions or they provide research and development. Their initial investments are undoubtedly huge, but these investments hardly open out to Goan civil contractors, who, if they are lucky only get some tertiary contracts. Don’t you think it’s strange too that the 72 labour contractors well outnumber the number of pharmaceutical companies, which goes to prove that the lucre is in hiring our cheap labour, and not as you are led to believe, in the jobs pharmaceutical companies provide. For the record, the deputy labour commissioner issued 1,149 licences to labour contractors as on April 2007.
(Feedback 2280935, 9822152164 lionroars.goa@gmail.com)
The director general of police Bhim Singh Bassi and the inspector general of police KD Singh could go down as the two funniest cops that hit town ever (Funny not in a ha ha way!) Bassi defended the Russian belly dance sizzle (apparently Belgian too) at the new police station at Anjuna as not being ‘indecent’. Singh said he saved the taxpayer Rs 3,00,000. Then like Russian Roulette and having fired the first chamber, it hit them. Now, they had to fire all the five remaining. What we got was a ‘belly’ full and finally the last rather weak shot, BLASPHEMY – ‘going to casinos is like going to temples or churches’ – snapped up eagerly by Manohar Parrikar. Only he (Parrikar) got it right. What next Mr. Bassi? A ‘Full Monty’ at police headquarters to raise funds denied you by the Centre for a commando force?
Three questions still dog me though: why was virtually half the second rung brass invited to the m.v Casino Royale, why didn’t their families go along too, after all, cops take their families to temples and churches and finally, why did Yogi, the event organizer based in Delhi agree to fly down an entire troupe of belly dancers, who don’t come cheap in the first place, and that would include putting them up in an expensive hotel? What’s in it for him, or is Yogi like the friendly fast talking Yogi Bear created by Hanna-Barbera Productions. Nah, doesn’t happen in India. There’s got to be a catch here somewhere.
'Police Academy’ of another kind
It happens all the time. Non-Goans get to take all those lucrative jobs (!) going abegging at the industrial estates, though as you will see soon, there aren’t too many on offer. Goan job seekers and entrepreneurs seemed hemmed in from all sides – they couldn’t even bid to keep our police entertained as the Anjuna gig proved. Here is a list of industry biggies of the kind Aleixo Sequeira said would give Goans jobs, if only we let them in, never mind if they trample all over us. The list given to me by the Voice of Villagers, Nagoa, gives the number of ‘contract’ workers employed at the Verna industrial estate, which the organization that opposes any further massive and unplanned expansion of the industrial estate, obtained under Right to Information. Shockingly, the data reveals that 2,421 contracted workers (daily wagers) were supplied by 72 labour contractors in the two years to April 30, 2007 when the data was issued. The deputy labour commissioner, Margao stated clearly he did not know how many of these contracted workers were Goan. His office did not maintain a job profile record of the contracted workers. In fact his office did not even have basic data. The list: Ratiopharm -25, Ratiopharm -18, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories -10, Cipla -20, Sanofi Aventie -10, Cipla -20, Cipla -15, Lupin -16, Glenmark Lab -20, Glenmark Lab -10, Ratiopharm -40, Ratiopharm -100, Ratiopharm -18, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories -15, Marksan Pharma -20, Cipla -50, Lupin -150, Marksons Pharma -20, Marksons -30, Cipla -25, Glenmark -20, Ratiopharm 40, Marksons Pharma 40, Watson Pharma -15, Sanofi Synthelabo -150, Watson Pharma -10, Erica Lifescience -150, Ratiopharma -25, Aventis Pharma -50, Lupin -40, Lupin -25, Watson Pharma -20, Sonafi Synthelabs -19, Sonafi Synthelabs -20, Micro Labs -25. The repetition in the number of companies is because these companies have bifurcated themselves for obvious reasons and deal separately with different labour contractors.
Don’t think these MNCs and big players would have added to their work force since then. They don’t because what the MNCs which have global footprints (including some Indian companies) have in Goa, are basically assembly line productions or they provide research and development. Their initial investments are undoubtedly huge, but these investments hardly open out to Goan civil contractors, who, if they are lucky only get some tertiary contracts. Don’t you think it’s strange too that the 72 labour contractors well outnumber the number of pharmaceutical companies, which goes to prove that the lucre is in hiring our cheap labour, and not as you are led to believe, in the jobs pharmaceutical companies provide. For the record, the deputy labour commissioner issued 1,149 licences to labour contractors as on April 2007.
(Feedback 2280935, 9822152164 lionroars.goa@gmail.com)
Monday, November 16, 2009
The tsunami 'SEZ'
The minister most concerned about getting jobs for Goans by creating SEZs and his pal, a commissioner with a globetrotting devotion to WHERE Goans have migrated, besides a professed love for getting jobs for non-resident Goans; have another thing in common apart from their shared love for creating imaginary jobs -they don’t read the newspapers. So, I suggest to them, try Google instead, it’s easier, quicker and your broadband comes free. I discovered that in whatever nonjudgmental way you Google, you still get a tsunami of opposition to SEZs on your screen. I even tried ‘is SEZ opposed in India’ and got the same answers. It appears none want it, except the minister.
There’s only one thing you can’t read in the thousands of words written about SEZ opposition when you Google, and that is the fact that industry in Goa pays slave wages (Rs 103 per day) to its workers and that labour contractors purposefully rotate contract workers between different employers, so there is always a break in their service. (***Are the minister and his pal doing something about that?)
Calling their bluff
Remember the number of times Luizinho Faleiro said industries would be forced to employ Goans although we just can't seem to live on those miserly salaries, and the times Aleixo Sequeira said SEZs will provide jobs for Goans, or the times Vishwajit Rane and the Dhavlikar duo have also said that, also thbat Chandrakant Kavlekar is eternally confused between SEZ and food park? Well, it happened that the MLA Damodar Naik asked for the names, addresses and date of joining of all workers employed by the companies in the Cipla group in Goa in the Goa Assembly late in 2007. The amazing answer from Digambar Kamat was: "Details such as names etc are not maintained by government." Einstein could not have been cleverer.
Sons of which soil?
Yet, another question asked was to furnish the number of Goan workers Cipla employed. Cipla replied: "The total number of local recruits/Goan origin is 1728 (contract and regular employees.)" For the record, Cipla cleverly parceled off its group (you can guess why) into seven different companies employing 2396 workers. You can guess too that nothing has changed in Goa since then.
And for readers in the mood to Google, do check on a report I think was released in 2007 by the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB), which sharply criticised the Indian government for offering unnecessary tax incentives to developers of SEZs. These incentives can open loopholes for tax evasion and undermine investments in firms located outside the SEZs, the report argued.
The ADB report added: "Some of the loudest political opposition to SEZ projects comes from the landless, who may not receive compensation for the land conversion and who lack the capital to become self-employed."
More bluff
In this same column titled ‘Living it up’ dated January 21, 2008, I wrote: ‘Goa's flying circus will never let you down because they don't suffer from jet lag. They just keep flying. The Commissioner for NRI affairs Eduardo Faleiro spent Rs 86,691 on trips to Kuwait and Qatar in November 2007. The Director, NRI Affairs UD Kamat spent Rs 66,930 on the same junket and Rs 58,807 in June 2007 to fly to Lisbon. The Chairman, Overseas Employment Agency of Goa VAdm John D'Silva spent Rs 66,930 on the Kuwait and Qatar junket. Evidently not satisfied with their efforts abroad they looked towards the homeland too. Faleiro spent Rs 3,64,535 to travel within India, while D'Silva spent Rs 78,566 and Kamat spent Rs 1,03,933.’
I have some more information (total cost this time) now on those junkets. Kamat spent Rs 1,43,037 on his seven day junket to Portugal via Frankfurt, He spent Rs 1,94,479 over nine days in Kuwait and Qatar, Rs 1,75,738 for nine days in Oman, UAE and Bahrain, Rs 1,97,090 over 11 days in Mozambique and Kenya and Rs 2,33,364 over ten days in Canada. Total: Rs 9,43,708. Faleiro spent Rs 4,52,272 for nine days in Kuwait and Qatar, Rs 5,22,905 for nine days in Oman, UAE and Bahrain, Rs 6,84,735 over 11 days in Mozambique and Kenya, and Rs 8,89,514 over ten days in Canada. Total: Rs 25,49,426. D’Silva spent Rs 1,36,267 over nine days in Oman, UAE and Bahrain and Rs 1,70,775 over nine days in Kuwait and Qatar. Total: Rs 3,070,42. Grand total: Rs 38,00,176. And so after yet another extravaganza the two-day ‘Fourth Global Goan Convention’ held on November 5-7 at Muscat and yet another strident call for ‘self-employment for NRGs”, do you see any job opportunities on the horizon? And for crying out loud, will one of you this time do the leg work and seek the expenditure of this one under Right to Information and pass it on to me. Honestly, I am tiring of doing this on my ownsome lonesome. Call 2280935/9822152164.
(Feedback 2280935, 9822152164 lionroars.goa@gmail.com)
The minister most concerned about getting jobs for Goans by creating SEZs and his pal, a commissioner with a globetrotting devotion to WHERE Goans have migrated, besides a professed love for getting jobs for non-resident Goans; have another thing in common apart from their shared love for creating imaginary jobs -they don’t read the newspapers. So, I suggest to them, try Google instead, it’s easier, quicker and your broadband comes free. I discovered that in whatever nonjudgmental way you Google, you still get a tsunami of opposition to SEZs on your screen. I even tried ‘is SEZ opposed in India’ and got the same answers. It appears none want it, except the minister.
There’s only one thing you can’t read in the thousands of words written about SEZ opposition when you Google, and that is the fact that industry in Goa pays slave wages (Rs 103 per day) to its workers and that labour contractors purposefully rotate contract workers between different employers, so there is always a break in their service. (***Are the minister and his pal doing something about that?)
Calling their bluff
Remember the number of times Luizinho Faleiro said industries would be forced to employ Goans although we just can't seem to live on those miserly salaries, and the times Aleixo Sequeira said SEZs will provide jobs for Goans, or the times Vishwajit Rane and the Dhavlikar duo have also said that, also thbat Chandrakant Kavlekar is eternally confused between SEZ and food park? Well, it happened that the MLA Damodar Naik asked for the names, addresses and date of joining of all workers employed by the companies in the Cipla group in Goa in the Goa Assembly late in 2007. The amazing answer from Digambar Kamat was: "Details such as names etc are not maintained by government." Einstein could not have been cleverer.
Sons of which soil?
Yet, another question asked was to furnish the number of Goan workers Cipla employed. Cipla replied: "The total number of local recruits/Goan origin is 1728 (contract and regular employees.)" For the record, Cipla cleverly parceled off its group (you can guess why) into seven different companies employing 2396 workers. You can guess too that nothing has changed in Goa since then.
And for readers in the mood to Google, do check on a report I think was released in 2007 by the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB), which sharply criticised the Indian government for offering unnecessary tax incentives to developers of SEZs. These incentives can open loopholes for tax evasion and undermine investments in firms located outside the SEZs, the report argued.
The ADB report added: "Some of the loudest political opposition to SEZ projects comes from the landless, who may not receive compensation for the land conversion and who lack the capital to become self-employed."
More bluff
In this same column titled ‘Living it up’ dated January 21, 2008, I wrote: ‘Goa's flying circus will never let you down because they don't suffer from jet lag. They just keep flying. The Commissioner for NRI affairs Eduardo Faleiro spent Rs 86,691 on trips to Kuwait and Qatar in November 2007. The Director, NRI Affairs UD Kamat spent Rs 66,930 on the same junket and Rs 58,807 in June 2007 to fly to Lisbon. The Chairman, Overseas Employment Agency of Goa VAdm John D'Silva spent Rs 66,930 on the Kuwait and Qatar junket. Evidently not satisfied with their efforts abroad they looked towards the homeland too. Faleiro spent Rs 3,64,535 to travel within India, while D'Silva spent Rs 78,566 and Kamat spent Rs 1,03,933.’
I have some more information (total cost this time) now on those junkets. Kamat spent Rs 1,43,037 on his seven day junket to Portugal via Frankfurt, He spent Rs 1,94,479 over nine days in Kuwait and Qatar, Rs 1,75,738 for nine days in Oman, UAE and Bahrain, Rs 1,97,090 over 11 days in Mozambique and Kenya and Rs 2,33,364 over ten days in Canada. Total: Rs 9,43,708. Faleiro spent Rs 4,52,272 for nine days in Kuwait and Qatar, Rs 5,22,905 for nine days in Oman, UAE and Bahrain, Rs 6,84,735 over 11 days in Mozambique and Kenya, and Rs 8,89,514 over ten days in Canada. Total: Rs 25,49,426. D’Silva spent Rs 1,36,267 over nine days in Oman, UAE and Bahrain and Rs 1,70,775 over nine days in Kuwait and Qatar. Total: Rs 3,070,42. Grand total: Rs 38,00,176. And so after yet another extravaganza the two-day ‘Fourth Global Goan Convention’ held on November 5-7 at Muscat and yet another strident call for ‘self-employment for NRGs”, do you see any job opportunities on the horizon? And for crying out loud, will one of you this time do the leg work and seek the expenditure of this one under Right to Information and pass it on to me. Honestly, I am tiring of doing this on my ownsome lonesome. Call 2280935/9822152164.
(Feedback 2280935, 9822152164 lionroars.goa@gmail.com)
Oath of Hypocrites
The Hippocratic Oath generally spelt out how doctors should ethically practice their trade. But, you should know that I intentionally avoided using the word medicine. That was in another millennium. Times have changed. There is a new ‘oath’ that offers doctors commissions that incredibly a Margao-based hospital published, without a care in the world, which is how I have a copy. If Hippocrates were to come alive out of the blue, my diagnosis tells me he would have gone prostrate equally swiftly and would have to be wheeled swiftly into the ICU. The commissions this private hospital offers speaks for itself.
Laparoscopic surgery
Gall stones surgery -cost Rs 25,000, doctors commission Rs 3,500; laparoscopic appendix Rs 12,000, Rs 1,500; laparoscopic hernia Rs 15,000, Rs 2,500.
Cancer
Ca breast surgery -cost Rs 20,000, doctors commission Rs 2,500; thyroid Rs 20,000, Rs 3,000, Ca colon stomach Rs 25,000, Rs 3,500.
Urology
PCNL (kidney stone) surgery -cost Rs 25,000, doctors commission Rs 3,500; URS (ureteric stones) Rs 15,000, Rs 2,500; TRUP (prostate) Rs 20,000, Rs 3,000; bladder stone Rs 10,000, Rs 1,500.
Gyneacology
LAP hysterectomy(hyst) surgery -cost Rs 30,000, doctors commission Rs 3,000; Lap myomectomy Rs 30,000, Rs 3,000; Diag hyst + lap for infertility Rs 10,000; Rs 1,000; open hyst Rs 20,000, Rs 2,500; open myomectomy Rs 20,000, Rs 2,000; LAP for cyst, ectopic pregnancy, adhesiolysis Rs 20,000, Rs 2,000; hysteroscopic procedures fibroid Rs 15,000, Rs 1,500.
Physician heal they self
So far, the central government’s efforts to curb bribing doctors have been like giving the fox the job of guarding the henhouse, despite the fact that more than a quarter of the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI) account for 70% of the drug market in India and who are subsidiaries of companies that have been penalised in the US for illegally promoting various drugs through inducement. Recently, Pfizer was fined $2.3 billion in one of the biggest healthcare fraud settlements. It wined and dined doctors sending them on exotic trips. Eli Lilly was fined $1.42. Glaxosmithkline (GSK) has reserved $400 million to settle charges of promoting unapproved use of drugs and of kickbacks to doctors related to several products. Bristol-Myers Squibb was fined $515 million in 2007. There’s more to this.
The huge profit margins on drugs big pharma companies make, to all intents and purposes, allow them to effectively bribe doctors. In fact, small-scale manufacturers of drugs have always maintained that drug prices can easily be brought down 50 per cent. But if big pharmas did that, would they have the money to bribe doctors, which includes sending them on holidays abroad and in India?
Healing or self-healing
A doctor told me a rep of a Chennai-based pharmaceutical company (name withheld) whom he described as ‘paan chewing and looking more like a thug’ offered him free encyclopaedias to begin with (he was starting out his practice) and a laptop next. The rep’s complaint was that pharmacies in his jurisdiction in Tiswadi were not prescribing his company’s drugs. A representative of an ethical pharma company said he received complaints from doctors of bribes being offered. Pharmaceutical companies pressurize pharmacies to sell their drugs, even if a doctor prescribes another drug; which is precisely why you never seem to get the drug you were prescribed. Which is why, often what should be a quick visit to the family doctor turns into a merry-go-round if you dare insist on every letter of the word on your prescription.
‘Vitamin M’ is also administered by a certain hospital into the veins of your traffic cops and the 108 ambulance service, to ‘induce’ them to rush trauma patients to the hospital. Breaking the Hippocratic Oath in Calangute and the coastal tourist belt extends to bribing hotel staff and taxi drivers to become ‘inclined’ towards certain private clinics, especially one near Mapusa, and particularly dental clinics.
A friend who got an attack of gastritis in the night at a resort in Anjuna had to shell out Rs 800 as doctors’ fees. The irony was that the resort owner was a friend whose friend the doctor was! This particular doctor makes a killing (quite literally) by preying on foreign tourists at resorts!
Government in intensive care
Sent there by the mushrooming of private hospitals, the government sees to it that all the major hospicios, including the health centres, are virtually redundant. The common refrain of doctors is ‘we are short of drugs and consumables.’ The Corlim health centre, built in a remote part of the village, is as a result, barely accessible.
(Feedback 2280935, 9822152164 lionroars.goa@gmail.com)
The Hippocratic Oath generally spelt out how doctors should ethically practice their trade. But, you should know that I intentionally avoided using the word medicine. That was in another millennium. Times have changed. There is a new ‘oath’ that offers doctors commissions that incredibly a Margao-based hospital published, without a care in the world, which is how I have a copy. If Hippocrates were to come alive out of the blue, my diagnosis tells me he would have gone prostrate equally swiftly and would have to be wheeled swiftly into the ICU. The commissions this private hospital offers speaks for itself.
Laparoscopic surgery
Gall stones surgery -cost Rs 25,000, doctors commission Rs 3,500; laparoscopic appendix Rs 12,000, Rs 1,500; laparoscopic hernia Rs 15,000, Rs 2,500.
Cancer
Ca breast surgery -cost Rs 20,000, doctors commission Rs 2,500; thyroid Rs 20,000, Rs 3,000, Ca colon stomach Rs 25,000, Rs 3,500.
Urology
PCNL (kidney stone) surgery -cost Rs 25,000, doctors commission Rs 3,500; URS (ureteric stones) Rs 15,000, Rs 2,500; TRUP (prostate) Rs 20,000, Rs 3,000; bladder stone Rs 10,000, Rs 1,500.
Gyneacology
LAP hysterectomy(hyst) surgery -cost Rs 30,000, doctors commission Rs 3,000; Lap myomectomy Rs 30,000, Rs 3,000; Diag hyst + lap for infertility Rs 10,000; Rs 1,000; open hyst Rs 20,000, Rs 2,500; open myomectomy Rs 20,000, Rs 2,000; LAP for cyst, ectopic pregnancy, adhesiolysis Rs 20,000, Rs 2,000; hysteroscopic procedures fibroid Rs 15,000, Rs 1,500.
Physician heal they self
So far, the central government’s efforts to curb bribing doctors have been like giving the fox the job of guarding the henhouse, despite the fact that more than a quarter of the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI) account for 70% of the drug market in India and who are subsidiaries of companies that have been penalised in the US for illegally promoting various drugs through inducement. Recently, Pfizer was fined $2.3 billion in one of the biggest healthcare fraud settlements. It wined and dined doctors sending them on exotic trips. Eli Lilly was fined $1.42. Glaxosmithkline (GSK) has reserved $400 million to settle charges of promoting unapproved use of drugs and of kickbacks to doctors related to several products. Bristol-Myers Squibb was fined $515 million in 2007. There’s more to this.
The huge profit margins on drugs big pharma companies make, to all intents and purposes, allow them to effectively bribe doctors. In fact, small-scale manufacturers of drugs have always maintained that drug prices can easily be brought down 50 per cent. But if big pharmas did that, would they have the money to bribe doctors, which includes sending them on holidays abroad and in India?
Healing or self-healing
A doctor told me a rep of a Chennai-based pharmaceutical company (name withheld) whom he described as ‘paan chewing and looking more like a thug’ offered him free encyclopaedias to begin with (he was starting out his practice) and a laptop next. The rep’s complaint was that pharmacies in his jurisdiction in Tiswadi were not prescribing his company’s drugs. A representative of an ethical pharma company said he received complaints from doctors of bribes being offered. Pharmaceutical companies pressurize pharmacies to sell their drugs, even if a doctor prescribes another drug; which is precisely why you never seem to get the drug you were prescribed. Which is why, often what should be a quick visit to the family doctor turns into a merry-go-round if you dare insist on every letter of the word on your prescription.
‘Vitamin M’ is also administered by a certain hospital into the veins of your traffic cops and the 108 ambulance service, to ‘induce’ them to rush trauma patients to the hospital. Breaking the Hippocratic Oath in Calangute and the coastal tourist belt extends to bribing hotel staff and taxi drivers to become ‘inclined’ towards certain private clinics, especially one near Mapusa, and particularly dental clinics.
A friend who got an attack of gastritis in the night at a resort in Anjuna had to shell out Rs 800 as doctors’ fees. The irony was that the resort owner was a friend whose friend the doctor was! This particular doctor makes a killing (quite literally) by preying on foreign tourists at resorts!
Government in intensive care
Sent there by the mushrooming of private hospitals, the government sees to it that all the major hospicios, including the health centres, are virtually redundant. The common refrain of doctors is ‘we are short of drugs and consumables.’ The Corlim health centre, built in a remote part of the village, is as a result, barely accessible.
(Feedback 2280935, 9822152164 lionroars.goa@gmail.com)
Cock and Bull stories
‘Pay parking is the need of the hour, since parking is free everybody brings four wheelers to the cities, mostly shopkeepers and businessmen, who park their vehicles for the whole day,’ said Arvind Gawas, SP to Herald. Let’s not even bother to dissect the absurdity of his argument, because a mere Rs 5 per hour isn’t going to convince car owners to pass up Panjim nor is the per hour rate going to deter traders who will simply pass it on to the unwitting consumer. But really, what Gawas needs to do expeditiously is to ban vehicles including mobile food vendors entering 18th June Road and instead convert it into a shoppers’ promenade (pedestrian only street) which has successfully been done the world over. I am sure our touring montris and babus have had the pleasure (courtesy your tax money of course) of seeing them on several occasions. In March this year shoppers and non-shoppers overwhelmingly voted in a survey to make Bangalore’s hugely popular Commercial Street a pedestrian zone. It’s not been done yet, but Bangalore is getting there. But for baloney, Gawas gets the month’s Emmy for outstanding gibberish beating the transport and river navigation minister’s rubbish on introducing a Ro-Ro ferry service between Agassaim and Cortalim on a build-operate basis. The other contender is this hair-brained idea of a link between Dona Paula and Mormugao port. This, like the Mopa airport, will never happen, but here’s a hint to the officials who went on a junket and returned awed by the Rs 1,600 cr Bandra-Worli sea link.
Saved! 20 minutes
Autocar recently tested the Sea Link and the traditional Mahim-Prabhadevi route in two Maruti Swifts. Their drivers took off from the domestic airport at 9.30 am sharp, joining the rush hour traffic heading to the Trident Hotel at Nariman Point. One Swift took the Sea Link and the other the Mahim-Prabhadevi route. The magazine’s verdict: the Sea Link proved to be longer and cost Rs 50 one way in toll, and it only saved 20 minutes in time. Not even India Inc starts board meetings on time. Mumbai, a metro bigger in size than Goa and with several times more vehicles than Goa’s population, might have decongested a fraction of its traffic congestion (In March 2007 it had 1,21,70,991 vehicles of which 85,73,679 were two wheelers, 7,00,356were trucks, 64,357 were buses, 1,33,309 were taxis 5,55,118 were autorickshaws.) But, what’s in it for Goa? Also, any Mumbaite will tell you that the Worli exit hits the sea face road at a right angle and is the only bottleneck in an otherwise smooth drive. Shift to Dona Paula which is already a bottleneck –that’s why I said hare-brained. Shift to Mormugao/Vasco where the almost the entire shore line belongs to the Mormugao Port Trust, Goa Shipyard and the Indian Navy … well, even more hare- brained. Aah yes, but then, our politicians do tend to rush off like the hare that nature bestowed very little brain power to.
Don’t rock the boat
As for the Ro-Ro idea, I foresee every industrial estate within miles and industry body protesting the idea for the simple reason that it will up transportation costs, leave alone the fact that there are several unknown entities like; river draft conditions, profitability break even per trip and whether a long vessel of this kind fits into the scheme of things.
Hares and hounds
The hares and hounds race, the game of chase in which one group of players, the hounds, follows a trail of scraps of paper left by another group, the hares, and tries to catch them before they reach a designated point. This is what it has been like chasing the hounds (those who waste our tax money) all these years. Or, do you feel like the hare sometimes, chasing the scraps thrown at you? Nuff said. Your montris (including Subodh Kantak, the government’s attorney general) spent Rs 1,35,778 between April and June 2009 living in hotels in New Delhi. But, what was Luizinho Faleiro, a non-montri, doing at Hotel Shangri la (expenditure: Rs 25,781) between June 8-10. Yeah, who cares? The austerity mantra is not for our montris. You can’t stop the juggernaut on wheels.
(Feedback 2280935, 9822152164 lionroars.goa@gmail.com)
‘Pay parking is the need of the hour, since parking is free everybody brings four wheelers to the cities, mostly shopkeepers and businessmen, who park their vehicles for the whole day,’ said Arvind Gawas, SP to Herald. Let’s not even bother to dissect the absurdity of his argument, because a mere Rs 5 per hour isn’t going to convince car owners to pass up Panjim nor is the per hour rate going to deter traders who will simply pass it on to the unwitting consumer. But really, what Gawas needs to do expeditiously is to ban vehicles including mobile food vendors entering 18th June Road and instead convert it into a shoppers’ promenade (pedestrian only street) which has successfully been done the world over. I am sure our touring montris and babus have had the pleasure (courtesy your tax money of course) of seeing them on several occasions. In March this year shoppers and non-shoppers overwhelmingly voted in a survey to make Bangalore’s hugely popular Commercial Street a pedestrian zone. It’s not been done yet, but Bangalore is getting there. But for baloney, Gawas gets the month’s Emmy for outstanding gibberish beating the transport and river navigation minister’s rubbish on introducing a Ro-Ro ferry service between Agassaim and Cortalim on a build-operate basis. The other contender is this hair-brained idea of a link between Dona Paula and Mormugao port. This, like the Mopa airport, will never happen, but here’s a hint to the officials who went on a junket and returned awed by the Rs 1,600 cr Bandra-Worli sea link.
Saved! 20 minutes
Autocar recently tested the Sea Link and the traditional Mahim-Prabhadevi route in two Maruti Swifts. Their drivers took off from the domestic airport at 9.30 am sharp, joining the rush hour traffic heading to the Trident Hotel at Nariman Point. One Swift took the Sea Link and the other the Mahim-Prabhadevi route. The magazine’s verdict: the Sea Link proved to be longer and cost Rs 50 one way in toll, and it only saved 20 minutes in time. Not even India Inc starts board meetings on time. Mumbai, a metro bigger in size than Goa and with several times more vehicles than Goa’s population, might have decongested a fraction of its traffic congestion (In March 2007 it had 1,21,70,991 vehicles of which 85,73,679 were two wheelers, 7,00,356were trucks, 64,357 were buses, 1,33,309 were taxis 5,55,118 were autorickshaws.) But, what’s in it for Goa? Also, any Mumbaite will tell you that the Worli exit hits the sea face road at a right angle and is the only bottleneck in an otherwise smooth drive. Shift to Dona Paula which is already a bottleneck –that’s why I said hare-brained. Shift to Mormugao/Vasco where the almost the entire shore line belongs to the Mormugao Port Trust, Goa Shipyard and the Indian Navy … well, even more hare- brained. Aah yes, but then, our politicians do tend to rush off like the hare that nature bestowed very little brain power to.
Don’t rock the boat
As for the Ro-Ro idea, I foresee every industrial estate within miles and industry body protesting the idea for the simple reason that it will up transportation costs, leave alone the fact that there are several unknown entities like; river draft conditions, profitability break even per trip and whether a long vessel of this kind fits into the scheme of things.
Hares and hounds
The hares and hounds race, the game of chase in which one group of players, the hounds, follows a trail of scraps of paper left by another group, the hares, and tries to catch them before they reach a designated point. This is what it has been like chasing the hounds (those who waste our tax money) all these years. Or, do you feel like the hare sometimes, chasing the scraps thrown at you? Nuff said. Your montris (including Subodh Kantak, the government’s attorney general) spent Rs 1,35,778 between April and June 2009 living in hotels in New Delhi. But, what was Luizinho Faleiro, a non-montri, doing at Hotel Shangri la (expenditure: Rs 25,781) between June 8-10. Yeah, who cares? The austerity mantra is not for our montris. You can’t stop the juggernaut on wheels.
(Feedback 2280935, 9822152164 lionroars.goa@gmail.com)
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