PMGSY: catalyst for changing the rural landcape

I'm just back from Assam after a one week long vacation there. Usually we go to Assam once every year and we take two weeks off. But this time we were there for a shorter time. When we go there, we visit our relatives from both my side and my wife's side. Most of our relatives are in Nagaon district. Nagaon is a central district in the southern bank of the Brahmaputra.

I drove a lot during the vacation. I observed three things about the roads in Nagaon district. I hope it's the same in almost every part of Assam. The national highway (NH-37) is in a bad shape because of the four-lane NHAI project. This project has been going on for quite a long time. I'm not sure how many years it'll take for the completion of the four-lane highway. Secondly, state roads (maintained by state PWD department) are in pathetic conditions. The road connecting my native town Morigaon to the nearby town Nagaon is one of the worst road I've ever seen. The condition of that road has been deteriorating every year. Either the local politicians are not interested or the state government has no money for development of the roads.

Contrary to the gloomy condition of the national highways and state roads, the village roads present a completely different picture. Thanks to the central government scheme called Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (means Prime Minister's Village Road Plan),  all the village roads have been developed in recent years in Nagaon and Morigaon districts and hopefully in rest of Assam also.  The remotest villages have all been connected through good roads under this scheme. There is not much traffic on these roads. These roads have started a new market for vehicles like Tata Winger, Tata Magic etc. These vehicles carry around 10 or 15 people and ply on these roads. Now it's a lot easier for people to travel through these villages.

I used these roads built under PMGSY scheme to drive to many of the villages where our relatives live. Taking these roads reduces the distance otherwise I had to take using highways.

I was curious to know who will maintain these roads. Construction of these roads will be meaningless if these are not maintained properly. I heard that there is a 5 year maintenance period for these roads. The contractor whoever builds these village roads need to keep aside 25% of the fund for maintenance of the road for the next 5 years. I hope this money is used in actually maintaining the roads and don't end up in the pockets of the officials.

Roads are very important for economic development. Most of India still lives in villages. Till a few years back, road connectivity in these villages were a big problem. I hope the PMGSY roads will bring in new prosperity and socio-economic development to our villages.

Me and my multi-way (m-way) stories

Recently there is an ad campaign, titled Me and Meri Maggi, going on for Maggi Noodles. This has inspired this post. I wanted to write some of my encounters with multi-way, (I sometime call them m-way), people.

Circa-2003, Place: My residence at RT Nagar, Bangalore

I was a bachelor at that time and shared the house with my brother and another friend of mine. I enjoyed sleeping till late into the morning on weekends. At around 6:30AM, someone knocked at my door. I was obviously annoyed at this unwelcome intrusion and wanted to shout at whoever was on the door. I opened the door and there was one of my friends standing at my door with one more person. I welcomed them to my small living room.

Let me tell you some background. My friend who has just come has been calling me for last couple of weeks to discuss some business plan. He called me on many weekends to attend a meeting to discuss their business plans which will be attended my many like-minded people. I asked him what is the business; he won't reveal me the type of the business...

Now I come from the wash-room and give them two glasses of water. The other person accompanying my friend asked me what is my future plan. He warned me that there were going to be much expenses in life and income from my job was not sufficient enough. So I should do some business. I was actually forewarned by a few other friends about this multi-way business. I could strongly and politely refuse them.

Circa-2004, somewhere in Sadashiva Nagar, Bangalore
Whenever I spoke to this friend of mine, he told me he had some business plan. I respected him (and still respect him). He was a brilliant guy who passed out from my college and was my senior. He earned a lot and possibly the highest paid guy amongst our contemporaries at that time. I thought he wanted to do some start-up. So I was interested. I asked him what was his business plan; but he won't tell me directly his business plan. After many conversations, I started getting a doubt that the style of discussion was going in the same way as my first story. I wondered how much money does one need. Here's the possibly best paid guy from my college and he is into this multi-way thing..



Circa 2003, Manipal Hospital, Bangalore
My younger brother was admitted into the hospital. While settling the bills, I had some interaction with a guy who handled medical insurance. We  exchanged our business cards. This guy later really pissed me off. He kept calling me for almost every alternate day for multiple weeks to attend some meeting to discuss some business plan. I had to be really rude with this guy.

May 2006, The Great Mall, Milpitas, California

I went to the Great Mall with my bhabhi. While shopping there, I came across an Indian family - husband, wife and a kid. They asked me what did I do and if I were shopping for my wife. The guy told me that he ran his own business. On hearing that, my bhabhi suddenly  pulled me away from them. I was a bit surprised as to what happened. Bhabhi tod me that these friendly-looking families are those multi-way people. Two of my friends who were also there in the mall kept talking to them. The family took the hotel phone numbers of my friend and reached our hotel in the evening with a box. Yes, their business plan start with a box. :-)

Feb-March 2008, Castro Street, Mountain View, California

My friend was enjoying a walk in  Castro street with his newly married wife. They met a very friendly Indian family and exchanged pleasantries. The next day this friendly-family reached my friends' apartment with the business inside a box. I kinda warned them the scenario. They politely avoided them.

October 2008, on a vacation in Assam

I got a call from Bangalore at my cell phone. The caller introduced himself as a friend of one of my friends, who I knew were already doing the multi-way business. The caller told me that he has some business plan and wanted to discuss with me. I asked him straightforward if he was a multi-way guy. He said he was. I politely refused. Told him that my work demanded long hours. Whatever little time is left after work, that is exclusively for my family. That's all..

2009, the Bay, RMZ Infinity, Bangalore

A stranger started talking to my friend (the same guy in Castro) saying that my friend's shoes were very good. He kept on the conversation that led to a business plan. But my friend was already experienced by now. He quickly found that this stranger was none other than multi-way guy..

Today (15th July 2010), Bangalore

My wife got a call. The voice was very familiar to my wife. The same lady called my wife last week also to sell some product. The lady on the phone introduced herself by some other name. Today my wife actually identified who was the caller.  She wanted to sell some international standards multi-way facial product. My wife knew the caller was actually a friend of her, but pretending to be some business-woman. My wife refused her strongly.

Do you have any multi-way (m-way) moments. Wanna share these with me here?

No cashless makes me penniless; what about you?

These days I've a nightmare: will I or any of my family members fall sick that requires hospitalization? I pray that neither of my family nor any of my friends' family fall sick during these days. All the major health insurance players have removed many of the top (?) hospitals from Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore for cashless transaction. That means, if we get admitted to these hospitals, we've to pay from our pocket and then apply for reimbursements. If we apply for reimbursements, then we're at the mercy of the insurance company. They will invoke some clauses of the policy to partially reject your claim.

Perhaps the intention of the insurance agencies is good. I read that 10% of the hospitals in these cities account for 80%-90% of the claims! Hospitals inflate the bills of the insured patients. There are different categories of rooms in hospitals. Usually the maximum room charge per day is 1% of the sum insured. If you've a mediclaim policy of Rs 3 lakh, then the insurance will pay you only Rs 3000/- per day for the room. If the room charge is Rs 3700, you've to pay Rs 700 extra. But that's only half the story. In all the hospitals, every other charge is proportionate to the room charge. If the doctor charge is Rs 300/- in a general ward, you may to shell out around Rs 1000/- for the same doctor if you're in a room. Similarly, if the some surgery cost is Rs 10,000/- for a patient from a general ward, you may have to pay Rs 30,000/- for the same surgery if you're a patient from a room! I don't understand the rationale behind this at all. How come the same surgery be so costly if you stay in a room whereas the same doctor, same staffs and the same operation theater (OT)  will be used? Suppose your maximum room limit is Rs 3000/- but you stay in a room of Rs 3700/-, then the insurance companies will apply pro-rata calculation on all of your hospital expenses on that ratio. Although your sum insured is enough to cover your total medical bill, you still have to pay from your pocket as your other expenses will be capped as per the maximum room-charge eligibility.

The insurance agencies have defined a Preferred Provider Network (PPN) and defined packaged rates for commonly occurring deseases. The hospitals have been asked to comply with that. The insurance houses want to rein in on the soaring mediclaim expenses. It seems in the long run, we as consumers will benefit. But as the tussle between the insurance agencies and the hospitals are going on, guess who has to bear the brunt? It's us - the policy-holders, the patients. So let's pray that all of us remain healthy till  the clouds of uncertainties over hospitalization are over. Otherwise, no-cashless-hospitalization will leave many of us penniless.

More links:

1. Accept our rates to get cashless plan: Insurers to hospitals, the Times of India, 15th July, 2010.
2. Medical insurance cos shortchange policy-holders seeking reimbursement, the Times of India, 15th July, 2010.

How many birthdays do you have? I have two!

I come from a small town - Morigaon. I went to government school and studied in Assamese medium till class-X. There was no play-school and pre-school those days in Morigaon and I went to class-I directly at the age of 5 year and half. There was no convent or any other English medium school there. Students from poor families to upper and lower middle class families in and around that town came to study in that school.

Usually kids of some poor people from villages start school late. Then some students fail in annual exams. So students of various age groups study in a same class.

Then at our time there was no birth-certificate in Assam. The class-X certificate from school-board was considered as the birth certificate.

So when we filled up the forms for class-X exams, our teachers told us not to fill the birth-day column. I didn’t understand its implication at that time. Later I found out that the teachers normalized some dates for all students! Our class X exams took place in the month of March. So all students' birthdays were distributed from about first week of Feb to first week of March.  That’s the story of I having two birthdays. The real one is in August and the official one is February.

Another consequence of these two birthday phenomenon: people used to retire from government services in the month of February and March.  My father retired in the month of February. My mother too will retire in the month of February. So is my uncle.


Things have changed a lot now. My native town Morigaon has changed since then. Birth certificates are compulsory in India now. So I guess people won't have the luxury of celebrating birthday two times in a year nowadays. :-)

I get two sets birthday wishes every year. From all my official contacts, I receive birthday wishes in February. Again in the month of August, I get birthday wishes from personal contacts. Well, it's not bad to receive people's good wishes twice in a year. :-)

It's my life! Really?

I've just listened to the song It's My life by John Bon Jovi after a long time, perhaps after a few years. This song was one of our favorite songs during our college days. I still love this song. Only difference between now and ten years back is that I can't feel oneness with the song that I used to feel in 2000. It's not just my life now in 2010!

Ten  years back, I was a student at IIT Kanpur earning Rs 5000.00 a month from the government as scholarship. There was zero liability on my head, no income tax to be paid, no EMI to be given, no credit card bill to be missed, no frustration at not getting salary hikes, no late night calls to attend, no worry over sensex going down, no rat race at all. I was really free (free as in freedom) then to enjoy my life my way.

Yes, Indian is my caste too!

One social evil that I've hated since I first came to know about it in my childhood is the caste system in Hinduism. There are many good things in Hinduism and I'm proud about that. But caste system is one thing which I can never agree to. It's disgusting; it's very inhuman; undemocratic. I see traces of racism in caste system.

Fortunately I was born in Assam where caste system is much less prevalent compared to other regions of India. There was a great social reformer in Assam circa fifteen hundred century named Sankardeva. There is no politics or politician in Assam based on caste. Assamese surnames are not based on caste. My surname Saikia can be written by people from different castes. But Assamese society is still not a completely casteless societies. Villages were named after castes. For example, hira-gaon (village of the caste hira), kalita-gaon (village of kalita caste), koch gaon (village of koch caste) etc. In rural areas, people from upper-caste-Assamese-Hindu won't eat at the same table with people from lower castes. Inter-caste marriages take place in Assam; but across some castes; not all.

Caste system is much more prevalent in rest of India. There are political parties whose main vote plank is castes. Inter-caste  marriage is a very rare phenomenon.

I wonder why caste system was not abolished during the social reforms that took place during the 18th and 19th centuries in India. We could abolish other social evils like untouchability, sati, and aversion to widow-marriage etc. I don't know if there was any social revolution against caste system in our history.


I thought gradually caste system will go away from India. With education and contact with the rest of the world, I thought Indians will realize how inhuman is this caste-system. I would love to see a society where there is no caste. I wish the government enacted a law banning the caste system. But I don't see that happening. One recent phenomenon has demonstrated that instead of  discarding the evil, we are moving towards it! In the latest census currently undergoing across the country, people will be asked to mention their castes.


I have always rebelled against the caste-system. I won't teach about the caste system to my next generation. I know there are many like-minded people in our society now who abhors caste-system. I'm very inspired to know that Amitabh Bacchan in his blog has written that he would write his caste as INDIAN in the census. Let's us all record our castes as Indians.


References

1. Interrogating the caste census, K. Subrahmanyam , Indian Express
2. Reviving the caste system, Kuldeep Nayar, The Dawn
3. Untouchable, National Geographic
4. Rediff's campaign against caste in census

36 years of parents' wedding

Today is the 36th wedding anniversary of my parents. On 13th May 1974, my parents tied the nuptial bond. It was of course an arranged marriage. One of my father's sisters (পেহী) was married in the village Dumdumia-Balisatra. That is my mother's village too. Then my mother's elder sister (জেঠাই) was married to the neighbouring village of my father's village Hatisung-Kujidahn. I think the the proposal for my parents wedding would have come from one of these two links. (I'm not sure. I'd ask them today.)  My father was the eldest of six siblings whereas my mother was the youngest of 12 siblings. There was a 10+ years gap between two of them. Did they meet alone to get to know each other? No, they didn't even talk to each others before marriage! My father's eldest sister (ডাঙৰ পেহী), who expired a few years back, and his youngest brother (বোপা খুৰা) met my mom before the marriage. And the marriage was finalized!  Very unthinkable if you fast forward the clock by 36 years; isn't it?

One success mantra behind their happy married life: I have never seen them fighting like many other couples. Whenever my father was angry, my mother was calm. Whenever my mother was angry for some thing (it was very very rare), my father kept quite. That way a fight never broke out between them.

My father is retired. My mother is working and will retire in 2015. They live in my native town Morigaon. Unfortunately, I am not with them on this day today. Just wanted to tell them: Deuta-ma, you've been the best parents of the world. I don't believe in gods that exist in temples. I see manifestation of gods in you. Love you.


I hope to celebrate the 40th wedding anniversary of my parents in 2014. (Last anniversary that we all celebrated was the silver jubilee year in 1999.)