Tag: CII

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Deal with it

BMC goes after diabetics in Mumbai

BMC will set up special OPDs, dispensaries and new hospitals in the city to deal with high diabetic patient load.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

The highest numbers of diabetics are found in India, and many of them are concentrated in the metros. Naturally, the current public health facilities are overstretched in dealing with the large numbers of patients seeking treatment.

Recently, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in partnership with Eli Lilly announced that it had developed a unique platform that not only deliberates on the rising menace of diabetes, but that it had submitted actionable recommendations to help strengthen policies and Government programmes [such as NCPCDS] related to the management of diabetes.

The BMC is now coming up with special OPDs, 80 dispensaries, 18 peripherals and 3 major hospitals in Mumbai to address the ‘increased NCD patient load’ under NCD Programme Services initiative. “The Corporation is trying to inculcate the habit of eating healthy food amongst the citizens of Mumbai”, said Dr Daksha Shah, Deputy Executive Health Officer (NCD) RNTCP, Public Health Department, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM). She added that the novel initiative involves intensive regional consultations with relevant experts to draw up comprehensive suggestions, best practices, challenges and enablers faced by service providers in Government and private sectors in day to day management of diabetes patients.

Said Dr Ashok Kirpalani, Professor and HOD, Nephrology, Bombay Hospital Institute of Medical Sciences (BHIMS), “There is a need to check diabetic nephropathy at an early stage before the need of dialysis sets in. The ability of microalbuminuria test to pick up renal failure at an early stage needs to be recognised as there is only 3 per cent mortality in test positive patients.”

Dr. Manoj Chadha, Endocrinologist, PD Hinduja National Hospital and Medical Centre, said, “High blood pressure needs to be recognised early and treated appropriately with ACE inhibitors/ARB”. He added that “Hypertension is also an important contributor to morbidity and mortality in Diabetes Mellitus.”

(Picture courtesy www3.imperial.ac.uk. Image is used for representational purpose only)

 

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Bombay, bas

Mumbai to become slum-free?

A few suitable amendments to the Slum Redevelopment Act 1971 are in the offing; but will Mumbai ever really lose its slums?
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

“The Maharashtra Slum Redevelopment Act 1971 will be suitably amended to achieve the Government’s vision of a slum-free Maharashtra and the ultimate aim of the Slum Redevelopment Authority (SRA) is to house slumdwellers” said Aseem Gupta, CEO, Slum Redevelopment Authority, while speaking at the4th Edition of the CII Regional Conference on Infrastructure Project Management in association with CBRE in Mumbai yesterday. The Conference aimed at focusing on the challenges and possible solutions pertaining to on-ground project management practices for India’s construction industry.

CII Photo 1Gupta said that the proliferation of slums happened as a result of the city not being able to provide affordable housing at the rate at which population increased. He said that amendments to the Act will act as a catalyst to providing affordable housing in a time-bound manner with lesser hassles. He added that while undertaking a slum redevelopment project the social and economic aspects of the community are taken into consideration. He also spoke of how a recent amendment that provides for the eviction of non-participants of a slum scheme after 50 per cent of the dwellers have moved out can actually accelerate the process of clearing slums. As per the ammendment, the dwellers can be evicted after issuing them a public notice as opposed to individual notices earlier.

Speaking about a unique situation seen in the last five years, Gupta said that although Government has been allocating huge budgets to local bodies to develop cities, the same was not utilised due to the lack of preparedness on the part of the latter. He said that in Mumbai there were around 1,400 ongoing slum redevelopment projects with some projects having up to 25,000 houses each. He admitted that on an average, a slum project take around five to 10 years to complete and delays are mainly on account of sudden and unexpected Government announcements.

Rishi Bagla, Convenor of CII Make in Maharashtra Panel and Chairman and Managing Director, OMR Bagla Automotive Systems, said “Although the construction industry has flourished in the last decade in terms of project procurement methods and the number of new players in the field, it lags behind with respect to on-ground project management practices.” Explaining the importance of Agile Project Management Approach, he said that large scale development projects suffer from cost and time overruns that are typically symptoms of productivity problems and directly affect overall industry profitability.

Aamer Azeemi, Managing Director, India, Cisco Consulting Services, spoke at length about the Western models of Smart Cities and their future in India. He said, “Infrastructure is essential to make cities smarter and technology is an enabler in this process.” He described Smart Cities as smart and connected communities and said that their successful implementation needs a strong leadership at the local authority level. He added that a city would truly become smart by implementing `Internet of Everything’, which essentially means connecting things, data, process and people to internet.

Rajesh Doshi, Executive Director, Acme Housing India Private Limited said that most of the reasons for the delay in a development project are beyond the control of the developers and this includes DC rules, which have changed many times. He added that in addition to being construction managers, developers also don the hat of risk managers.

Pointing out to the various delays caused in huge projects because of lack of effective project management systems, Gurjot Bhatia, Sr Executive Director – Project Management Group, CBRE South Asia Pvt Ltd said that 83 per cent of the Central Government projects in India suffer from cost overruns and worldwide about 70-90 per cent of projects exceed stipulated time and costs.

(Pictures courtesy www.theaustralian.com.au, CII. Featured image is a file picture)

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Event

Massive diabetes awareness drive in Mumbai today

BMC and CII join hands for ‘Drive against diabetes’ across city; want to screen 2,00,000 Mumbaikars across the city today.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

With World Diabetes Day around the corner, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) launched a  ‘Drive against Diabetes’ campaign yesterday. The public private partnership model hopes to mobilise people to join the fight against diabetes – they are aiming to screen at least 2,00,000 people across the city today.

Corporates like Apollo Hospitals, Apollo Munich, OneTouch, Abbott, SANOFI and several others have come forward to support the initiative. Screening centres will be marked by blue balloons – citizens must simply walk in and ask to be screened.

Prabhu said, “Today, diabetes is one of the major conditions affecting people’s health and lifestyle. It is estimated that by 2030, the diabetic population will be around 10 crore. Out of which 6.2 per cent are expected to be suffering from diabetes and 15 per cent from blood pressure. Within India, Mumbai is leading this race to the top – the city experiences a hectic work culture, high levels of stress and fewer sleeping hours. During the drive, we expect that even if 10,000 to 12,000 people are tested positive for diabetes, we will incorporate that in the MCGM’s database and an SMS alert will be sent to them after three months suggesting the next level of detailed diagnostics. The testing of 2,00,000 people in a single drive is a record in itself, but I will be happy if 5,00,000 people are tested in the next drive and fewer are diagnosed positive for diabetes.”

The BMC had started a drive against diabetes in 2011, when 21,700 people were diagnosed with diabetes at the dispensary level. Currently, there are more than 86,000 diabetics on the BMC database. “Of these, 15 per cent who are at the initial stage [of the disease] are being suggested lifestyle modifications and 61 per cent and 22 per cent detected with controlled and uncontrolled diabetes respectively are under the MCGM medical care programme,” says Manisha Patankar-Mhaiskar, Additional Municipal Commissioner (Western suburbs). “But the ambition is to create awareness of diabetes and not to focus on numbers,” she adds.

Over 500 screening centres will be set up today across the BMC’s ward offices and in over 40 member companies of CII (Reliance, Larsen & Toubro, ICICI, Star Indian, Mahindra, Bajaj, Blue Dart, etc.), chemists, pharmacists and public places in Mumbai that will target to screen over 2,00,000 individuals reaching out to the workforce as well as the larger community. Blue balloons will identify these centres. Over 700 paramedics will also be mobilised across Mumbai to test individuals across industries. The private sector has come forward to provide screening kits including glucometers, strips, swabs, lancets, information booklets and questionnaires alongside training and capacity building for the paramedics.

“This drive will generate significant data which will help understand the incidence and prevalence of diabetes,” Patankar-Mhaiskar says. “It will be analysed to generate a final report on the state of diabetes prevalence in Mumbai, generic recommendations on the way forward as well as lessons learnt during this massive community led drive. Such a report will be useful to policy makers, programme officers, healthcare providers as well as other agencies working in the area of diabetes.”

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Kharcha paani

Mumbai greenest in the country

Mumbai has most numbers of green building projects in the country, with over 229 million square free of green building space.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

As cities become more congested and more polluted, and as old buildings give rise to swanky office complexes and residential towers that consume a lot of resources, every real estate developer worth his salt is asking to incorporate ‘green’ elements in their projects.

Cynics argue that developers do this not out of a sense of obligation to the environment but because they earn several benefits for coming up with green projects. The reasons notwithstanding, the country is seeing a rise in the numbers of green building projects, and a majority of them are in Mumbai.

On Saturday, July 20, the  Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) announced that Mumbai has the largest stake in green building projects in the country. The IGBC and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) spearheaded the Green Building movement in India a few years ago. Since then, the movement has apparently gained momentum, with the country showing over 2,110 registered green building projects amounting to over 1.51 billion square feet of green building footprint. This has put India in the top 5 countries in terms of the world’s green building map.

Green Building seminarSaid Gurmit Singh Arora, Vice Chairman, CII (IGBC Mumbai chapter), “Today, Mumbai has over 295 registered green building projects, amounting to over 229 million square free of green building space, thus leading the green building movement in the country. As these numbers steadily grow, the State can reap significant ecological and economic benefits.

“Most importantly, these buildings can demonstrate energy savings to the tune of 40 to 50 per cent and water savings to the tune of 20 to 30 per cent, apart from other intangible benefits.”

The IGBC is also set to release the report on ‘Environment Guidelines for Public Buildings’ as Phase I and the same guidelines would later be released for private buildings under Phase II. In the context of green buildings, it must be noted that the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Government of India, accords faster clearances for green buildings rated by IGBC. Additionally, the construction costs of a green building are 3 to 4 per cent higher than a conventional building, but the incremental cost gets paid back within three to four years with a substantial reduction in operational costs.

Arora added that since 75 per cent of buildings that would exist in 2030 are yet to be built, there exists a huge opportunity in design and construction of green buildings, “which not only addresses ecological issues and concerns, but also makes good business sense.”

(Pictures courtesy www.indianrealestatemarket.com, CII)

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Learn

Maken wants to safeguard home buyers’ rights

Union Minister says that proposed real estate regulatory bill would give home buyers a greater say in the purchasing process.

Home buyers may soon get a bigger say while buying a house, as per the provisions of the proposed Real Estate Regulatory Authority Bill, which is to be tabled during the forthcoming Union Budget. Ajay Maken, Union Minister for Housing and Poverty Alleviation at the ongoing International Conference in Mumbai on ‘Governance of Megacity Regions’ organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Center for Policy Research (CPR), said that the Bill would aim to safeguard the interests of customers.

Maken said, “The proposed Bill will greatly reduce the prevailing rampant corruption in the real estate and housing sector. Not only will it protect the rights of home buyers, but it will also bring in greater transparency. Developers will be restricted from channelising funds collected from customer for one project to another one, which will provide better security to the home buyers’ investments. Even the property agreement documents, which are prepared and executed by the developers, will not remain one-sided, thereby not favouring the developer alone.”

The Union Minister is contemplating providing ‘Infrastructure sector’ status to the affordable housing segment, which will enable banks to come forward to providing loans to the urban poor, and provide an unprecedented boost in this segment. Banks will be able to provide long-term loans and also with the change in industry status, the ratio of Non-Performing Asset (NPA) from this category will reduce. “The poorer section will receive easy financing options augmenting the affordable housing market and in totality giving a boost to the real estate industry,” he said.

On his suggestion to the Government of Maharashtra for raising the Floor Space Index (FSI) policy, Maken said, “We had a deliberation with the State Government and it has shown interest in considering this option for improving the living standards of poor and hutments in the urban establishments.” Another recommendation he has made it to have mega plans for inclusive development and community participation for Mumbai city’s metropolitan region, as one of the solutions to heightening urban evolution challenges.

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Event

Kashmiri MBA students create mock tourism company

CII event counselled Kashmiri MBA students on tourism and its career opportunities, at an event held in the city yesterday.

Today, the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) held the event ‘Udaan’ in association with Godrej, to address MBA students from Kashmir. The subject of the seminar was ‘Tourism, its scope and the career opportunities if offers’. This is an annual six-week programme.

The session was presided over by co-founder and director of Ecomantra, Ravi Goel. He was among 12 other speakers chosen to address the students, and he has taken the last three batches of ‘Udaan’. This particular batch had 36 MBA students (21 boys and 15 girls) from two top universities in Kashmir.

“It has been a very engaging two-hour session with the students. It was a pleasure sharing ideas with such bright students from Kashmir; I have always found them very committed and sincere. We are very impressed by Udaan’s initiative in creating a real learning experience for these students. (As part of the interaction), I made the new batch start a tourism company from scratch. Some of them came up with very good ideas and I was surprised by the quality of concepts they had. These kids were very, very good,” Ravi said later.

The interactive session required the students to create a tourism business plan based on concepts of demand and supply, dynamic pricing, etc. Earlier sessions had dealt with tourism and how Kashmir can do things differently, the idea of experiential tourism as against mainstream tourism, among others.

Udaan was a programme initiated to integrate Kashmir and its youth in the mainstream economy of India. It was conceptualised to address unemployment in Jammu and Kashmir and was launched by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram in 2010.

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