CWG = Common man’s Wealth Gone

When work on the Commonwealth Games began in 2006 the mega budget was Rs 22,000 crore. Four years later the budget is Rs 30,000 crore. It has swollen by nearly 40 per cent forcing the Delhi government to increase taxes and roll back crucial subsidies.

All projects have been delayed, primarily the Commonwealth Village, which had a budget of Rs 465 crore in 2004 and now Rs 1400 crore, losses have occurred also because many apartments remained unsold. The government was forced to buy them off contractors.  The budget for 11 stadiums was Rs 1200 crore in 2004, it has risen to Rs 5000 crore and the government still huffing and puffing its way to meet the deadline. Work on flyovers was altered mid-way several times and now the budget: Rs 1,650 crore. Streetscaping is another unplanned expenditure with a budget of Rs 1,000 crore. Security too has been an added expenditure with a budget of Rs 370 crore, but that's because of the terror scare that has pitched in recent times.

The list is exhaustive………in a bid to develop Delhi for the games, the government forgot one very small entity called the ‘common man’.

They claim to have done all this and more not only for the games but with a thought of giving Delhi and the ‘Delhites’ a world class city and infrastructure but with such callously spent money and resources for a 13 day event surely has made ‘Delhi-light’ from its pockets.

While on my way back home one late evening in the new DTC high capacity low floor buses with AC (bling bling!!) with comfortable seats (bling * 3!!) and automatic doors (bling * 4!!!!) I could not help overhear someone comparing the Asiad games to CWG 2010. "After the Asiad Games it took them 25 years to sell off the players' buildings. It took them 20 years to sell off the Asiad Village. For these games, my guess is it will take them 40 years to break even.” He said.

My take is that the amount of money the government has spent (read pocketed) on the games was much more (tempting) than the amount they could have had access to (again read pocketed) in their government’s 5 year tenure considering such hue and cry and their constant ’efforts’ to make Delhi a better place for ‘all’. With money being spent like the aam adami’s sweat and blood (cant compare to water….that’s a luxury now days) on anything with CWG attached the Games which should seem to have brought with them happiness seem forced and subjected to in the current scenario.

Shera the CWG mascot is an office boy at Organizing Committee’s office

With its very act of making an office boy do double the work as a clerk in the morning feeding the hard working (pun intended) Organizing Committee workers with tea and snacks and in the evening donning the 10 kg mascot dress, the government has made its intentions, of double jacking  everybody’s life in the city, quite clear.                                ( pic taken by Bharat Joshi)

While the other day travelling in our world renowned auto rickshaw to office (with the auto wala agreeing to travel by meter) I read a couple of graffiti’s at the recently carpeted moolchand underpass (now 4 fatalities old) in English, question the Games’ focus. It read “Pro-rich anti-poor CWG sucks” and “I hope the Games are a disaster”.

Is digging and redigging up pavements and building and rebuilding them a good use of resources? Flyovers may help the cars zip by, but lack of infrastructure and funds in schools and abysmal condition of sanitation in the city haven’t seen much Common man’s Wealth come their way.

Though one cannot argue that no expenditure is justifiable till poverty is eliminated but it needs to be asked if the infrastructure boom in the run-up to the Games middle-class or aam aadami centric or Does the graffiti draw attention to something other than itself?

- Bharat Joshi, Imprimis PR

On Team building- By Amrita Thukral

"It is amazing how much people can get done if they do not worry about who gets the credit."

In an industry like ours where our core objective is to best service our clients, team effort tops the list of internal measures. And each of us would definitely have variedly experienced a nagging boss or a credit stealing co-worker or even an always available junior. The one factor we’d love to witness in our work place would be a balanced team structure with set responsibilities and cooperative co-workers.

No one can ever have a control on others’ thoughts --- thoughts around escaping work, thoughts around being casual, thoughts around simply stealing the work and so on and so forth. What we all can at least work towards is better team building activities. I’m sure some of these are already being followed but just to list down:
·        Work Related
o       Team meetings on alternate days --- to assign responsibilities around each task and gather status
o       Penning down of all discussions --- for clarity and avoiding any confusions
o       One mail at the EoD by all detailing out the client discussions happened over the day --- to keep the whole team at the same platform
o       Monthly staff meeting --- to discuss broad aspects of the on-going work, current and new clients, internal issues etc
·        Recreational
o       A team lunch / dinner / snacking out (self contributory) once in like three months
o       A small treat by the team leader to his / her team on a successful event / project
o       1 movie in 6 months (great if company can sponsor J or else self contributory)

And yes, the one thing all of us can really benefit with would be an offsite J … After all, all of us form the big Imprimis TEAM!

Would be great to have more suggestions pouring in …

Comments requested.
  

The Imprimis Quarterly- May Issue @www.imprimispr.com

Branding of a Maternity Hospital

A maternity hospital as the word defines is a place that provides care for women during pregnancy and childbirth and for newborn infants. Maternity hospitals are usually run & managed by gynecologists. 

A lady mostly consults when she first takes pregnancy urine test and it shows a positive result. The lady usually meets her gynecologist after a period of 30 days or less depending on the criticality of the pregnancy.

These nine months can be an important branding exercise for a brand manager of a pharma company or companies marketing products for children between one to two years.

Let’s analyze, how a brand manager can translate this opportunity.

• The number of visits of the pregnant lady 12 and waiting time 15 min, which a/c's to 180 minutes to focused viewer ship for any brand. Most often the lady is accompanied by her husband of a relative, so double the viewer ship.

o        These companies can distribute reading material, with co-branding

o        A TV screen can be displayed in the waiting room, and visual education material can be shown, like yoga exercises during pregnancy, diet to be followed, interview of the gynecologist, etc

• Maternity hospitals are usually branded on the lines of hospital, but most fail to understand that the lady is not suffering from any diseases, its just a new phase in there life, her transformation to motherhood. So the hospital set-up should change. The lady should feel at home, decorate it as a place where she is feels more at home.

• Give or suggest books to read, coz their are many things she wont know. The companies targeting would be mothers should publish informative books for these ladies.

Suggest some instrumental music she should hear which will help in the development of the foetus. There are studies to indicate that you can teach you child in the womb itself.

• The first consultation is first impression; give her accessories with the maternity home branding e.g. "Admit me to Ankur hospital in case of emergency". This will be a good branding initiative for the maternity home. The accessories can be t-shirts, teddy bears, etc.

• Conduct pregnancy classes for would be mothers as they are going through lot of changes like psychological, hormonal, diet, etc. These classes can address their queries and also teach them yoga & exercises, which are very important. Though we will find maternity hospitals in each and every corner, but hardly any gynaecologist is interested to run such classes.

• Post delivery have the room decorated with balloons, this will create a moment of joy, so she will forget the pain of delivery. Also a lot of relatives visit the family after delivery, have a small flower boutique next to the hospital as they can buy flowers for the lady.

• Post delivery the clothes of mother and child, should be branded on the lines of the maternity home colours and logo. This will have a good brand recall.

These are some of the branding exercises which can be undertaken by a maternity home one example in this area is Cradle by Apollo group of hospitals. 

If Branding and PR strategy is done properly the maternity home will reap huge benefits.

Post by Moses Gomes, Assist- manager, Imprimis Life PR

How About Casual Fridays??? ( From The Imprimis suggestion box)

Friday Friday Friday  ahhhhh...... it comes with feelings of fun, frolic, freedom and freshness. As the week comes to an end, energies roll down to an all time low. It is extremely necessary to keep up the momentum and the enthusiasm at the office so that  work does not get affected. There is a need to spice up the lives of the employees on Fridays. 

Casual Clothing can be one option...and a good one at that. Casual clothing plays an essential role in bringing fresh vibes to an office environment. Casuals on Fridays do not mean being casual towards work but  a chance to look at things from a different prospective. An employee working in an organization understands the eco-system and his responsibility towards work. He/She would never wear casuals if they have to go for a client meeting or any formal meetings. A crisp formal shirt and a pair of Jeans can be the best combination for office casual dressing. I take this opportunity to share my thoughts about casual dressing through Imprimis Blog and await everyone's views on this.

-Mahak Choudhary