MONTH THAT WAS

Telemedicine Odisha style

Odisha: A telemedicine project started by an Odisha-based social entrepreneur is slowly going national after the Central government adopted it as a model project two years ago. Started in 2009, the unique model that focuses on sustainability involves training of local youth in e-medicine services and enables them to set up e-health centres in government-run primary health-care centres (PHC), community health centres (CHC) and subdivisional hospitals. These centres have created job opportunities for over 500 youth in Odisha and reached out to over five lakh patients.

For jobs and health

“There are two main problems that ail us — unemployment and bad health. Through this micro-entrepreneurship programme we have attempted to tackle both,” says Kedarnath Bhagat, managing trustee of Odisha Trust of Technical Education and Training (OTTET) under the aegis of which the telemedicine model was conceptualised. At OTTET, local youth are trained for a month in an e-health assistance programme, after which they can apply for a bank loan to start an e-health centre in PHCs and CHCs. “On average, the cost of starting a telemedicine centre goes up to `6 lakh. A centre needs a staff of four people, including the entrepreneur,” explains Mr. Bhagat, adding that typically a centre is equipped with a laptop with video camera and basic diagnostic testing facilities like blood glucose meter, urine analyser, heart rate monitor, etc. So far, 127 such centres have been opened in Odisha at the village and district level (see picture).

“At no cost to the government, these centres help in offering basic testing facilities. Patients suspected to have major illness get the benefit of the telecommunication facility for consultations with senior doctors,” says Mr. Bhagat. The OTTET has tie-ups with government hospitals as well as private hospitals such as Apollo, Global and Narayana Hrudayalaya.

These telemedicine centres also create a database of personal health records of every patient walking in for future reference. Mr. Bhagat says for a centre to be viable, the PHC or CHC should have a footfall of about 50 patients a day. “The revenue comes from charges for tests and tele-consultation fees. In case patients are covered under any health scheme for the poor, these charges are borne by the scheme,” he says. The charges for tests and consultation are fixed by the government; a basic consultation costs `100 while that with a super-specialist costs  `300.

Across other States

In 2015, a team of government consultants termed this project as one of the eight “best practices globally”. The World Health Organisation too believes telemedicine to be particularly beneficial for rural and underserved communities in developing countries.

While the OTTET plans to cover all 51,000 villages in Odisha, pilot programmes have begun in Gujarat, Jharkhand, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh while four other States are also in line. “Telemedicine offers phenomenal opportunities to doctors to reach out to patients,” says Dr. Devi Shetty of Narayana Hrudayalaya. “It acts as a good bridge.”

Mission to rescue minor girl from Omani

New Delhi: Union minister Maneka Gandhi said she would request External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to rescue a 16-year-old girl, who has been married to an Omani in his sixties reportedly for `5 lakh.

Gandhi took to Twitter to respond to media reports on the incident, which she termed as “deeply disturbing”. “Have asked the Commissioner of Police, Hyderabad, to investigate the case and identify the persons who forced this illegal marriage,” she tweeted.

“I would request @SushmaSwaraj to intervene and bring the girl back to India from Oman,” the minister wrote on the microblogging site.

She also asked the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights to contact the family members of the girl.

According to media reports, the Class 8 student was married to a 65-year-old, Ahmed, from Oman three months ago for `5 lakh, allegedly by the girl’s aunt.

BPL card holder gifts land worth `1 cr to Lalu family

Patna: Lallan Chaudhary, a BPL card holder of Siyadih village in Siwan district has gifted land worth `1 crore to Mrs Rabri Devi and Hema Yadav, daughter of RJD president Lalu Prasad.

Lallan is himself an Indira Awas unit allottee. Releasing the documents to suggest gift of two costly land plots measuring 10 decimels at Danapur in Patna within a span of 18 days, former deputy chief minister and senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi said while gifting the land plots to Rabri and Hema, Lallan declared in the deed: the donor (Lallan) is very close to the donee (Hema) for a long time and the donee is also financially helping him, so he desires to make gift his said property”.

Lallan Chaudhury claimed to have purchased the land from Vishundeo Rai and Ratneshwar Yadav for `4 lakhs in 2008.Sons of both Rai and Yadav were given employment under minister railway (MR) quota when Lalu Prasad was Railway minister. After 8 years, Lallan gifted the land valued at `1 crore to wife and daughter of Lalu. He also paid `6 lakhs in cash as stamp duty to the state treasury, according to the documents.

Modi said Lallan is the house keeper of cow shed of Lalu Prasad for 20 years and the entire land deal was benami one. First Lallan was shown as having purchased the land and after 8 years, he claims to have gifted the land to Lalu family.

Modi demanded Lalu should produce Lallan Chaudhury before the media and prove genuineness of the deal and innocence of his family in the land deal.

He alleged, in all deals of jobs in the railway ministry or contracts, Lalu got land transferred to his trusted personal staff and later got them transferred in the names of his family members.

According to the senior BJP leader, Income Tax authorities were looking into the land deals of Lalu family. He urged the chief minister Nitish Kumar to hold probe into the property deals of Lalu and his family members. He would submit a memorandum to the railway minister too seeking probe into land for jobs in the ministry during the tenure of Lalu Prasad

Income Tax had summoned Ms Misa Bharti, eldest daughter and son-in-law Shailesh Kumar to appear before the IT investigation team on June 7 and 8, respectively, but both of them abstained resulting into fine of Rs ten lakhs to each of the two.

Girls Education activist Malala gets Oxford invite

London: Pakistani Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai will be studying in Oxford University.

“So excited to go to Oxford!! Well done to all A-level students — the hardest year. Best wishes for life ahead!” Malala tweeted on Thursday, along with a screen shot of her acceptance into the prestigious university.

The 20-year-old will study philosophy, politics and economics. In March, Malala revealed she had received an offer to study the three subjects at a UK university on condition of achieving three As in her A-levels, the Telegraph reported.

Malala was nearly killed by the Taliban in Pakistan for campaigning for girls’ rights to education in 2012. She became internationally known after the incident and relocated with her family to Birmingham for further rehabilitation.

In 2014, at age 17, Malala became the youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and has since become a symbol for the fight for human rights and education.

In April, she became the youngest-ever UN Messenger of Peace.

Notable Oxford alumni include Pakistan former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Myanmar’s pro-democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi as well as former British Prime Minister David Cameron and his one-time Labour opponent Ed Miliband.

Indian CEO’s salary 1200 times of average staff

New Delhi: A huge pay gap between CEOs and other employees at Indian companies has come to the fore, with the biggest listed blue-chip firms doling out to their top executives salary packages of up to 1,200-times of their median employee remunerations.

An analysis of remuneration disclosures made by top listed companies forming part of the blue-chip index Sensex — under directions of the capital markets regulator SEBI — shows that the pay packages of senior-most personnel such as CEOs and executive chairmen continue to remain high and rose further at most private sector firms during 2016-17. 

On the contrary, the median employee remuneration fell or remained almost same during the last fiscal, while the ratio of the top executive’s pay to the median employee remuneration remained at astronomically high levels of hundreds of times in many cases.

Salaries in PSUs

The public sector companies show a totally different picture. Their chiefs get salaries of just about 3-4 times of their median employee remunerations.

While the rules do not put any restrictions on the companies regarding how much more they want to pay their top executives vis-a-vis an average employee, the SEBI regulations require most listed companies to annually disclose various remuneration ratios to help the investors know about salary practices at the firms in which they have invested.

However, salaries of top executives, especially in case of those related to promoter groups, typically require the approval of the companies’ boards, various committees and shareholders. Besides, the companies with inadequate profits need the government’s approval for any excessive salaries paid to their top executives.

As per the rules, the remuneration payable to any one managing director or whole-time director or manager, cannot exceed 5% of the net profit of the company. If there is more than one such director, the remuneration cannot exceed 10% of the net profit to all such directors and managers taken together.

Among the 30 Sensex firms, at least 15 have already disclosed an increase in the ratio of top executive pay with that of the median employee remuneration for 2016-17. Nine of the Sensex firms are yet to disclose these numbers and therefore the tally may go up.

Six Sensex companies have reported some decline in this ratio and these include Wipro (down from 260 times to 259 times), Infosys (283 times), Dr. Reddy’s Lab (from 312 times to 233 times) and Hero MotoCorp (from 755 times to 731 times).

The country’s most-valued firm Reliance Industries did not disclose this ratio in its latest annual report published on the website. While its chief Mukesh Ambani has capped his pay at `15 crore for many years now, the ratio was high at 205 times in 2014-15.

The companies having seen a rise in the top executive pay included Wipro, TCS, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank, Bajaj Auto, Tata Steel, M&M, Hero Motocorp, Lupin and Bharti Airtel.

The overall key management pay rose significantly for Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, HDFC Ltd, TCS and Asian Paints.

TCS saw the ratio between top-paid executive pay and the median employee remuneration rise to 515 times (from 460 times in previous year), while the same for Lupin stood at 1,263 times (though down from 1,317 times) for Chairman. The ratio for the CEO at Lupin was much lower at 217 times.

At Adani Ports, the ratio was down to 42 times in case of Gautam Adani (from 48 times), while the ratio was much higher at 169-times for another Whole Time Director. The same for Bajaj Auto was also high at 522 times.

Among banks, the ratio was highest for HDFC Bank’s CEO Aditya Puri (whose pay package rose by 20% to over `10 crore) where it rose from 179 to 187 times. Kotak Mahindra Bank saw the ratio rise from 42 to 48, ICICI from 100 to 112 times and Axis Bank from 72 times to 78 times. At HDFC Ltd, the ratio for the CEO Keki Mistry rose from 88 times to 92 times, while the same for Chairman Deepak Parekh was much less at 17 times.

Among the companies which are yet to report their latest numbers, Larsen and Toubro had disclosed a very high ratio of 1004 times for the fiscal 2015-16.

At ITC, the ratio rose from 427 to 508 times in case of Y C Deveshwar, who has now given up his top executive role, but the ratio for the current executive chief was much lesser at 59 times.