Articles by Navya P K

At the start of the pandemic in 2020, the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru, started a national helpline for COVID-related mental health issues. The nature of calls in the second wave are different from those in the first. From psycho-social issues in the first wave, callers are now trying to cope with hospitalisation, death, grief and the like. Dr K Sekar heads the Centre for Psychosocial Support in Disaster Management, which runs the helpline (080-4611 0007). He reveals that calls had plateaued by March, but are peaking again. "When we started the helpline in March 2020, we…

Randeep D is currently Special Commissioner for CHBMS (Central Hospital Bed Management System). Pic: Twitter/Randeep D Last week, MP Tejasvi Surya caused a furore when he made allegations of corruption in the allotment of hospital beds to COVID patients. Even before Surya made the allegations, the BBMP, on May 3, had appointed a three-member committee to study and recommend changes in the CHBMS (Central Hospital Bed Management System). The committee was to plug loopholes in the CHBMS software that allowed for its misuse. On May 7, the committee submitted its 33-point recommendations; the very next day, BBMP passed an order…

Since last week, Bengalureans have been bombarded with news that BBMP's COVID bed allocation software has major glitches, leading to corruption in allotment. Even before MP Tejasvi Surya came out with allegations of corruption, the BBMP had appointed a three-member committee on May 3, to study how the bed allotment system can be made "transparent and robust". The committee comprised of: V Ponnuraj, nodal officer for the state COVID war roomKumar Pushkar, nodal officer for CHBMS (Central Hospital Bed Management System)Vipin Singh, nodal officer for 1912 helpline The committee submitted its report to BBMP Chief Commissioner Gaurav Gupta on May…

Bengalureans have a multitude of COVID helplines, but how helpful are these? Those who have called the helplines for beds say it takes hours or even days to get a bed now. When it comes to follow-up for those in home isolation, some say they got calls on time, but some others say the calls came too late to be helpful. "There are simply no beds" Biju Mathews, a resident of Koramangala 3rd block, is part of a volunteer group that supports COVID patients. Last week, his group got requests for hospital beds from two critically-ill patients. Despite calling COVID…

In Part 1 of this series, we saw how BMTC's ridership is affected by the corporation's slashing of services post COVID. In this part, we explore how BMTC can sustain services in these difficult times, despite its severe losses. Across the world, public transport corporations are reeling under losses during COVID. There is hardly a corporation that is recovering without government support, say transport experts. Dr Ashish Verma, Associate Professor, Transportation Systems Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science, has been reviewing case studies on the topic from across the world. "The experience is similar everywhere. As long as there…

Afeena, a domestic worker, does not commute by BMTC bus anymore. Ever since COVID's onset, bus services to her workplace has reduced so much that she is forced to either walk nearly 4 km or hire an autorickshaw every day. The recent BMTC staff strike cut off public transport in the city, but even before this, many loyal BMTC commuters had been affected after the corporation reduced its services due to COVID-induced revenue losses. According to the data BMTC shared with this reporter, in March end (before the staff strike), BMTC was running only 5,320 buses out of its fleet…

In the last two weeks, Bengaluru hospitals have seen horrifying cases of COVID deaths due to the lack of oxygen supply. One such case was that of 35-year-old Subramanya. The first hospital Subramanya was admitted to was running out of oxygen, and for a long time, he was unable to find an ICU bed in another hospital. He was eventually admitted to Prashanth Hospital near Bommanahalli, but his oxygen saturation level had deteriorated so much that he couldn't be saved. Dr Vishwanath Reddy, Managing Director of Prashanth Hospital, says his hospital has been suffering from oxygen shortage too. "Our regular…

The most important lesson for the Covid first wave was the urgent need to strengthen the state’s public health systems and infrastructure. But the current year’s budgets of both the state government and the city government ignores this need. In fact, the state’s 2021-22 budget has been criticised for its low priority to strengthening the public healthcare system overall. As of now, all attention inevitably is on managing the Covid second wave. “Rs 50 cr is earmarked towards 'natural calamities', that is, Covid management”, says Thulasi Maddineni, Special Commissioner (Finance) at BBMP. The BBMP had spent Rs 90 crore on…

On March 27, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike's Administrator Gaurav Gupta (he has since been elevated to the post of BBMP Commissioner) presented the city’s budget for 2021-22, in the absence of an elected Council. The budget outlay for this year is slightly lower than that in the last two years, yet high at Rs 9286.8 crore.  Where will the money come from? According to budget documents, the largest chunk of funds (41%) will come from state government grants. The second highest contribution (36%) is expected from taxes, primarily property tax. BBMP expects to collect Rs 2,800 crore of property tax…

Last year, newspapers reported allegations regarding a '4g scam' in Bengaluru. The charges were made by the Bengaluru Navanirmana Party (BNP), a political party launched by a collective of active Bengaluru citizens in 2019. The party has presence only in Bengaluru, and plans to contest the yet-to-be-announced BBMP elections. BNP said they had stumbled upon the scam while collecting data on all works done by the BBMP in its five-year term between 2015 and 2020. The data showed that half the works completed by BBMP had been done without calling tenders - BBMP bypassed the procedure using Section 4(g) of…