One imagines that Dr. Ramadoss, Hon'ble Minister for Health, has too much time on his hands these days. After his successful campaign for the ouster of Dr. Venugopal from AIIMS, he has embarked upon a high profile mission of putting scary pictorial warnings on Cigarette and Bidi packets. Ironically most of the resistance is coming from within Congress itself. Watch this Devil's Advocate show to find out where that is going.Incidentally the alleged link between some AIIMS doctors and the recently unearthed kidney transplant racket didn't get much media coverage. While Dr. Venugopal was the director, secular media was covering every piece of medical malpractice case at AIIMS.
To summarize the AIIMS coverage timeline in the secular media:
Prior to the reservation fiasco: What is AIIMS?But fear no more, the good Doc is going to fix everything. Once he moves his ass from the CNN-IBN studios and actually goes to work that is.
During the reservation fiasco: AIIMS is a hotbed of casteism and urgently requires social justice
During the height of Venu-Rama duel: An AIIMS doctor again left a scalpel inside a patient's bowel
After Dr. Venugopal's ouster: AIIMS? What?
Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss' obsession with the affairs of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in the Capital is proving to be a bane for the six new hospitals proposed to be set up on the lines of the institute. The slackness of the Ministry in executing such a high profile project reflects in the poor utilisation of funds. In the current financial year, the Ministry has utilised only Rs 46 lakh against the actual allocation of Rs 150 crore under the plan head.
Even last year only Rs 6.27 crore was spent against the allocation of Rs 75 crore. The Ministry's Super Speciality Hospital (SSH) Cell, that handles all the projects, had utilised only Rs 2.52 crore against the allocation of Rs 256 crore in 2005-06. Given the pace of physical progress, one wonders if the Ministry would be able to meet the deadline of 2010 to complete all new super-speciality hospitals. Even the detailed project reports (DPRs) have not yet been prepared.
The Centre had planned to spend Rs 2,541 crore during the 10th Plan ending March 2006-07 on the projects conceived and announced by the NDA Government in February 2004. Less than Rs 10 crore has been utilised so far. "There is conspicuous delay in the project. The deadline would not be met. The new deadline would be decided only after the DPRs are approved by the Ministry's expert group and is referred to the Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC). The total cost would also go up from earlier estimation of Rs 4,l58 crore," a Ministry official said. [link]
2 comments:
There is a Shuvro on Sandeepweb whose id links to your blog. But his views are different from yours. Most of the time he is making inane comments - different from your well researched pieces. Can you clsrify who this person is and how does he manage to link to your blog?
Missing deadlines, delaying projects that would benefit the societly at large while being passionate about something else. And all this under the premiership of our dear economist PM Dr. Singh. There's something peculiar about the congress rule isn't it? And I thought this time they were going to work for the 'aam aadmi'. The 'Garibi Hatao' slogan is here to stay.
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