Tuesday, 24 March 2020

A Rose by Any Other Name ?




In his nation-wide address last evening , PM Modiji did not declare ,

National Health Emergency  [  - as urged by me in my email yesterday ],


Instead he announced ,

Nation-wide 24 hour LOCKDOWN for 21 days { presumably under National Disaster Management Act }


For details of how Lockdown will affect our lives, read :




PM also announced a budgetary provision of Rs 15,000 crore to fight the pandemic – mostly to be spent on augmenting HEALTH SERVICES [ Hospitals - Ventilator supply etc  ]


There was only a passing reference to ECONOMY – that too , a warning that economy is bound to suffer and jobs may be lost , causing hardship to people – especially, to poor people


He spoke of the fact that developed countries , despite their substantial Healthcare Resources , have failed to control the pandemic . He stopped there without terming the efforts of these developed countries to “REVIVE the ECONOMY “ by spending $ 500 billion - $ 800 billion - $ 1,000 billion , as totally MIS-GUIDED !


How come “ misguided “ ?

Developed countries want to pump in those billions of dollars , to “ Keep economy running normally – as before “ – presumably to save job-losses


That means enabling / encouraging , factories and offices to stay open and keep working


In turn , that would require all transport ( whether Public or Private / whether Passenger or Freight ), to operate “ as usual


In short , no restriction on people congregating / mixing / bumping into one another , as before


Essentially allowing everyone to shout ,


 “ Welcome to Community Transmission ( Stage 4 ) “



If in doubt, look at this data as of yesterday :

================================================================================
Country
Deaths
Confirmed Cases
% age Death to Conf.
Italy
6,820
69,176
9.8
Spain
2,991
42,058
7.1
Iran
1,934
24,811
7.8
USA
   797
55,233
1.4
India
        9
      562
1.6


Now you will understand the wisdom of Shri Modiji , when he said :


Ø  Jaan hai to Jahaan hai

Ø  को  =  कोई 
Ø  रो   =   रोड पर 
Ø  ना   =   ना आवे 

He could have added :

Ø  सिर सलामत तो पग़डिया बहोत 


As of now , no country has :

Ø   a  Vaccine to Prevent Corona
Ø   a  Drug to Cure  Corona

It may take weeks / months to develop these , by which time , Corona would have infected MILLIONS of persons in those Developed Countries


By which time , thousands would have died in those countries


Let no one have any doubt that our only salvation lies in SOCIAL DISTANCING through LOCKDOWN


Of course , there will be disruption in supply of our daily necessities, but for a few days before things settle down . Government Agencies will get overwhelmed. We need to “ grin and bear it “ !


I have only one request to Shri Modiji , viz :


Even as jobs get lost as Economy slides ( possibly for next 1 year ) , and may take another 1 year to return to 5 % GDP, let some officers ( by name ) – and not departments / sections / Ministries , silently / quietly work to implement :

How to convert Temporary into Permanent ? 



The only thing that Task Forces / Committees / Empowered Groups etc manage to “ achieve “ is giving all the members, a “ Sense of Enlarged Participation “

  .
Diffused / Shared Responsibilities ( where you cannot hold a SINGLE person as “ Accountable / Answerable “ ) , cannot get things done


Hold a person by his collar and tell him :  Get this job done by XYZ date . Period


And , if you must have a Task Force / Committee , just pose the problem and tell each member :


  We don’t need suggestions from you as to who should do what


   Please , stand up and say :


  This is WHAT I will do by XYZ date 


=========================================================

25  March 2020 (  First Day of Lockdown )

hcp@RecruitGuru.com



No comments:

Post a Comment