Woe of gratuity
In an intriguing case, a bureaucrat who was used to lording over his fiefdom like a ‘colossus’ for a considerable number of years has now turned into a ‘pygmy’. He seems to have been caught, as it were, into a cleft stick following his superannuation. His predicament is such that he has been running after the gratuity and other arrears like a man who is running after an elusive mirage. This is because a wily Babu has been sitting on it. Desperate, he is going all out to get his due. He is not even hesitating to use carrot to lure the obstinate babu into clearing his dues after the stick failed to yield the desired result. He is ready to adequately grease the babu’s palms. To get a clue to his ‘price’, he is coaxing his close confidantes’ to lure him to a bar to make him come up with how much he wants in lieu of clearing his files. However, the files keep gathering dust for over a year with the crafty babu taking his time evidently to raise his ‘price’. What is more, the diary writer has found that the files have been floundering in the serpentine mazes of the very department he used to lord over for several years during his heydays. His patience wearing thin with his dues proving a chimera, he is now intent on using again the other option of cane to browbeat the intransigent babu. However, no one knows whether that would fetch him his dues. The insiders confide that there are two kinds of files which the Secretariat officials use to fleece the retired. They are negative files and positive files. They flaunt the negative files first. The ‘positive’ files are conjured up after the palms are greased.
Vying for the fresh
Doon Medical College (DMC) which is about to enroll MBBS students for this year for the first time-Doon Hospital has just got the tag of medical college is standing nowhere before publicity glitz resorted to two well-established private medical colleges SMI and HIMS, Jollygrant. Sri Mahant Indresh Hospital is not also lagging far behind. However, it proves that the private medical colleges are scared deeper down. They are flaunting their statures in terms of the time they have been existing. They say they are old with roots running deep while DMC is a greenhorn in the field. However, beneath the gaudy surface, they are edgy. They are rather caught on the back-foot as they do not provide quotas to the students from the State. Moreover, DMC, in the good book of the Medical Council of India (MCI) it has fulfilled the required criteria is definitely in advantageous position. It has its decks cleared for those students ready for the switch. However, SMI, in particular, unwilling to call it a day yet, has embarked on a vigorous campaign to keep its flocks together and to rope in the fresh. A visit to Patelnagar would make things clear. One can hardly come across an electric pole that does not bear a SMI hoarding. However, things for it might hit a dead end as its students who do internship at DMC might go for the switch. This is natural, for DMC sees a daily OPD footfall of 2500. There are sound reasons for the private medical colleges to see red.
The students might think that as the DMC would take interns of its own after four years where they would go. It thus seems that despite the glitz they have unleashed to steal the show over the government-run medical college, those manning the private medical colleges are scared of what is in store for them after four years.