National

Blame Virus

Officials say there is no epidemic. Yet, the city tots up 160 deaths after the floods. Each one points the finger at the other. <a href=pti_coverage.asp?gid=118 target=_blank> Updates</a>

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Blame Virus
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The epidemic outbreak showed up another fundamental flaw in BMC's planning. While Mumbai expanded and grew northwards, most of its public health care continued to be in the south, requiring the ill and dying people to travel against all odds. The eastern suburbs, with nearly 40 per cent of the city's population, are served by one civic hospital. An annual health budget of nearly Rs 800 crore, a network of three major hospitals, 16 peripheral hospitals and over 200 nursing-maternity homes could not help the BMC battle the "outbreak". Once again, there was paucity of initial information followed by a sense of confusion and awe at the administrative level. Only individual doctors and medical teams in various hospitals did stupendous work.

Logically, the buck for this epidemic outbreak—as for the collapse of civic infrastructure and total absence of disaster management planning—must rest at the office of the BMC commissioner, the harried and hounded Johny Joseph. His primary complaint now is that he "has been hanged in a media trial". Mumbaikars find it difficult to forgive Joseph despite the fact that some BMC workers were toiling away at garbage mounds even as their homes lay under water. It is, again, a matter of perspective.

Joseph believes he and his team have done the best they could in unprecedented circumstances and within the powers that now rest with the BMC commissioner. "People are expecting a political role from a civil servant. I am only an administrative leader, the political system takes the call," he remarked in exasperation to demands for his resignation. Mumbai has a civic commissioner and 221 corporators with a Rs 7,000 crore annual budget to plan for it, look into its infrastructure and amenities but the reins of power mostly lie with the chief minister. CM Vilasrao Deshmukh expertly dodged all blame, calling it a "natural disaster". If the political system ducks, can the babus be expected to silently take the rap?

The blame game makes little sense to those affected. In several areas, anger has replacedpanic. And, bang in the middle of the health crisis, Salunkhe quit to take up the WHO assignment he had accepted some monthsago. Is it any wonder that the average Mumbaikar's faith in the system is at an all-time low—so low that people now believe that actor Shahrukh Khan and Preity Zinta's efforts to clean up a part of a maidan is a mighty and timely effort?

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