Friday, September 28, 2007

Corporates addressing Social Concerns

Reliance Industries now wants to enter into HealthCare working on developing 1500 Primary HealthCare Centers (PHC) in-line with the Government Health System in India.

Reliance would want to Invest Rs.25,000 Crores into this venture. In the article, there is a questions which has been put across whether this would fit into the Corporate responsibility or is there a business angle to it?

I feel that there is corporate touch to each aspect of service anywhere in this world. Probably, the NGO segment does not fall into this, but even NGO's work towards creating a model for self-sustainence and longitivity of the organization. So, will this work?

My opnion is that these kind of initiatives will definitely work, and especially, when corporates this big would want to venture into social problem related areas, there would be a huge impact on people. However, corporates venturing into Social problems need to have a different strategy while working on solutions. Traditionally, corporate thinking is different from a common man's thought process. Here are few pro's and con's of corporate involvement in social aspects:

Positives
  1. Initiatives are well marketed - People know about big organization and tend to look at what they are trying to do and play a role in it.
  2. Financial Strength - Organizations have good money and they are ready to take the risk of investing and taking risks.
  3. Management ability - Experienced people have good understanding of basic problems and hence they can manage solutions effectively.

Need Attention
  1. Organizations need to involve well-known and respected personalities who have worked/have been working in solving social problems. Having respective background knowledge would be a huge advantage.
  2. Corporates should not give/create their own direction to solutions of these problems, instead work in association with Government and people who are experienced in the respective fields.
This is a good change in thinking of corporates, I hope this goes in a good and meaningful direction.

Friday, September 07, 2007

HealthCare Personnel in India

The number of registered Doctors in India has increased from 61,800 in 1951 to 6,45,825 in 2005, which translates to 0.61 Doctors for every 1000 people. To give a comparative analysis, Cuba has 5.91 Doctors for every 1000 people in 2002.
India has 5.9 Doctors, 0.8 Nurses and 0.47 Mid-Wives for 1,000 people which add up to 1.86 Health workers for 1,000 people. As per the Joint Learning Initiative launched by Rockefeller Foundation, on an average, countries with less than 2.5 Health Care workers fail to achieve 80% coverage rate. According to Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s (MOFHW) “Health Information India”, 2004, we had 67, 576 Doctors; which translates to 1 Doctor for 15, 980 people.
The Government’s estimated requirement of specialized surgeons, obstetricians, gynecologists, physicians and pediatricians in 2001 for Community Health Centers in rural areas is 12, 172, but only 6, 617 posts were sanctioned and only 4, 124 positions were filled.
  • There are 122 Private Medical Collages and 119 Government Medical Colleges in India.
  • As per CNN-IBN Lives article published on 30 August 2007, there is 1 Doctor for every 2,200 people.
  • According to an Escorts Heart Institute research document prepared in 2005, it is estimated that India would need 1,00,000 qualified nurses and 5,00,000 Doctors by 2012.
  • There are close to 8000 Hospitals in India with a total of 6,00,000 beds, which translates to only 7 beds for every 10,000 population.
  • India spends around 10% of its GDP (amount) towards HealthCare.

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Online Grievances in India

Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances which falls under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions has initiated the Online Public Grievance Lodging and Monitoring System which you could use to record any of your grievances to the Government.

India is truly developing and these are small steps to reach there. So, next time when you have a concern, try this. You don't know, it might just work.

9 C's of Leadership

Times of India, on 31 August 2007, published an interesting column by Lee Iaccoca. In this article he writes of the 9 C's which he feels will make a leader:
  1. A leader has to be Creative
  2. A leader has to show Curiosity
  3. A leader has to Communicate
  4. A leader has to be a person of Character
  5. A leader must have Courage
  6. To be a leader, you have got to show Conviction
  7. A leader should have Charisma
  8. A leader has to be Competent
  9. You cannot be a leader, if you don't have Common Sense