Saturday, September 09, 2006

Malegaon blasts

I was going through media reports about the visit of Congress President, Home Minister and Chief Minister of Maharashtra. It was discouraging to observe that all of the media reports interpreted the return of cheques differently.

NDTV forgot to report about it. So, no comments about them. The Economic Times interpreted that cheques were returned because the four men thought that INR 1 lakh is too little a compensation for them. CNN-IBN observed that they wanted justice and not money. When I saw the video, I found myself closer to observation made by CNN-IBN.

I would like to take a dig at left parties as well. The left parties love to poke their fingers in government coming reforms otherwise they have neither the time nor the inclination to bring basic infrastructure abnormalities to the front. The Malegaon blasts have exposed our intelligence infrastructure and their efficiency yet again but have also exposed the need to start the reforms in health sector.

I will like to salute those four Muslim men who were courageous enough to return the cheque and question the chief minister. These four men have brought a sleepy but very important issue to the headlines and that is sad state of affairs in health sector.

India, as a country needs reforms badly in health sector. The health sector is ailing and is continuously bleeding. There is virtually no medical facility for a poor person because our government hospitals are corrupt, inefficient and lack the spirit to serve a patient. The private hospitals are expensive for a poor person. Rather than showing a leadership to bring reforms to this sector, our health ministers are either busy taking on their able administrators or making trips to foreign countries. None of the previous governments have given this sector the due attention.

First, we need to have a vision and road-map to create the necessary health infrastructure in a given time frame. The need of the hour is to enhance the number of hospital beds and create basic minimum infrastructure in every village. We need to create 1/10th of AIIMS in each district head quarter. Now, we need money and resources for this mammoth exercise. The government has to bring public-private partnership and make this sector attractive enough to bring FDI. The insurance agencies and health agency has a greater role to play.