A Nobel for the Queen ?

A Nobel for the Queen ?

My deepest apologies to my readers! The Sandha was ill and therefore forced to rest in the front of Naveen Nivas displaying his crown jewels to the world while he watched the Queen’s predictable antics! The Sandha is back, raring to gore ! Watch out!

Much against his wishes, the Queen was forced to visit Kashipur to see what this bloody cholera thing was all about. After trying to wish it away, he could not defer it for long, lest the moribund Opposition leaders make an issue out of it.

And a new thing was the publicity banners put up by the local BJD unit advising the people not to drink stream water.Where will they get their water from? From the phantom tube wells which were never set up but religiously billed by the RD department?

I was furious to watch the Queen on TV with his silly grin trying make head and tail of what the suffering tribal was saying from his hospital bed at Kashipur PHC. When the nincompoop has yet to learn the language what can he do for the “development” of the state other than sell all our mines at harek maal rates!

The Queen has never made an effort to find what happens to the hundreds of crores of public funds which are routinely funnelled to the KBK districts. Actually, the idiot does not have to look far! Most of it comes back to the Rajdhani as fat wives of class II babus throng the glitzy gold and diamond showrooms to offload the take! And who are the buyers of the numerous apartment blocks springing up every other day? These babus of course in the names of their servants, third cousin, minor offspring, etc !

Let the govt. order an investigation into the source of funds for each flat buyer in Bhubaneswar who has bought a flat during the last five years and the trail will invariably end at Kashipur or Thuamul Rampur.

Even when the Centre doled out Rs.700 crores as NREGS funds, it made little difference since a recent report alleged that at least Rs.500 crores has been siphoned off. The poor never got their job cards, never got their work to which they were entitled to as per law. Even when they worked, they were unpaid for the last six months. What was the Queen doing all along? Having his black dog pegs and prawn kababs ofcourse and dreaming of selling our last mines!

Kashipur ! The place refuses to vanish from media space. First it was the tribal killings which took place due to the displacement by the aluminium plant. Then came the starvation deaths and the shocking images of tribals subsisting on mango kernels. The final straw you will agree is the cholera epidemic! What about the development the protesting tribals had been assured of when Utkal alumina started its work several years ago?

The contradiction was glaring and obscene! Rs.4,000 crores is being spent on setting up a giant aluminium plant but yet the people in the surrounding villages were dying like flies in some Mughal period Indian town hit by cholera.

Cholera! The word evokes alarm and fear. I asked a few of my doctor friends about this disease and they had a brief idea about this since it was a very rare disease! None of them had ever handled a cholera patient during their internship and no professor taught them the treatment regime.

Trust Orissa to be the place where such medieval age diseases strike with impunity! The MOU obsessed Queen does not want to hear from his minions about hunger, child sale or the complete collapse of health services. If any babu goes to him without an MOU paper trailed by a fat cat safari corporate honcho, he is promptly shooed away by the single pocket babu in the Queen’s office who tells the Queen where to sign.

The Queen with his pious declarations about his undying commitment to tribal welfare should now be awarded the Nobel prize for hypocrisy. With his fluttering eyelashes he never loses an opportunity to wax eloquent about his fake love for tribals while ordering his police to shoot them if they protest displacement!

After returning from his whirlwind visit, he promptly despatched his health minister to tour the area. The Health Minister whose head is placed firmly on the chopping block is a disinterested man and is hardly bothered with the epidemic. He awaits his marching orders and bids his time till d-day!

I cringed when I heard friends in Delhi mention about people dying like flies in Rayagada and Koraput district due to cholera epidemic! The urban crowd was impressed by the way the Queen was attracting investments from all over the world and thought that the state has now truly come of age! Nobody told them that the govt. is now run by banias and MNCs and hence it is least bothered about citizen welfare! For the babus, it is only MOUS, MOUS and MOUs they work on every working day!

The health service in the mofussil areas is in shambles. No doctor, no medicines , no diagnostic services. Purchases made under the massive DFID funded Orissa Health sector development project were a big scam with the fat buffoon who served as health minister three years ago. Purchases were made from black listed suppliers and critical machines like digital X-rays and Ultrasound machines which failed even the basic technical tests were bought since hefty commissions were paid by the suppliers. May this devil rot in hell and may some incurable disease strike him for selling the future of Orissa’s health!

The state had come out with a grand scheme to appoint contractual doctors. For the grand sum of Rs.12,000 a month for the KBK districts and Rs.10,000 for other districts ! Will you get even a pharmacist for this sum!


Now ofcourse, realizing their big mistake, they have announced revised scales at Rs.20,000 odd which I doubt will also be enough since most of the places do not have decent accommodation for housing doctors.Can’t the state build a couple of quarters for the doctor and the pharmacist, etc. at every PHC?