A senior officer in the Coimbatore Corporation seems to be taking his job very seriously. He does homework to improve on his functioning from the office and it included learning lessons in civil engineering from his better half to understand how roads are laid, at what proportions sand, blue metal, bitumen, etc. are mixed and more. He then goes on field inspection to test if his officers are guiding him in the right direction and also to test his knowledge.
A student at home, he turns a teacher when he goes to Corporation schools and teaches Plus Two and Class X students preparing for public examination. Amazed at the roles he is playing, his colleagues are quipping that the officer has too many hats to wear.
***
The recent spate of deaths of women following pregnancy-related complications at the Government Sait Hospital in Ooty had its share of burden on official machinery outside the hospital. For, immediately after the first deaths were reported, senior officials of the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital rushed to Ooty to ascertain the reasons. Then the entire top brass of the Health Department starting from the Minister himself had to make a beeline to the hill station. Several rumours began to float that all the patients at the maternity ward of the Ooty hospital were about to be transferred to CMCH.
Responding to this, a senior CMCH official said that this was simply not possible because their hospital was already stretched to its full capacity. While the CMCH had 1,020 beds, the number of in-patients is almost always above 1,200. Many a time, patients had to sleep on mattresses spread on all available spaces in the hospital.
***
Recently, media persons, lawyers and political party activities were seen discussing about Government rules meant for motorists and its universal applicability. Discussion was also held on “all are equal before law and as to whether some are more equal”.
At a number of public places in the city especially during agitations, a police official’s vehicle was seen with curtains fully covering the window panes. The Supreme Court had imposed a ban on use of tinted films on motor vehicle wind shields and window panes. Initial court ruling was that the visual light transmission levels should be 70 per cent in the case of windshields in the front and rear and it should be 40 per cent for the window panes.
When the yardstick is applied strictly on the common man, a vehicle belonging to a law enforcing agency moving around with curtains raised the eyebrows of many.
***
Union Minister of State (Independent charge) for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman's address at the ‘Resilient Tirupur’ conference organised by Confederation of Indian Industry sounded bitter to the ears of the Tirupur industrialists initially as she highlighted the drawbacks in their entrepreneurial skills. However, later many of the industrialists after having given a serious thought to the Minister’s observations were seen agreeing towards the failure to get the cluster projected as a brand.
Despite the growth in terms of annual turnover that runs into about Rs 18,000 crore, the cluster is yet to project itself to the foreign buyers as a purchase hub of renowned brands. Many other points by the Minister like the wrong tendency shown by the textile entrepreneurs to identify China as a point of reference whenever they wanted to ask for sops from Union Government, also was an eye opener to the industrialists.
