The Hindu : New Delhi News : A dose of advice

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Monday, Nov 30, 2009
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New Delhi

New Delhi

A dose of advice

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has allowed drug manufacturers to increase the prices of 119 medicines, including some vital general medicines of day-to-day use such as insulin, antibiotics, dettol, pain-killers and vitamins.

The Authority should also have issued guidelines to prevent drug manufacturers’ gimmick-packaging that often misleads the public about the real price of medicines.

Several companies pack cough-lozenges in strips of eight instead of the usual ten. Many consumers judge the prices of such medicines by the rate per strip, overlooking the number of tablets/lozenges per strip. Likewise, despite the metric unit of packaging being in force for the last half-century, some companies use metric-convertibles of old foot-pound-second units to pack medicines. The NPPA should direct drug manufacturers to compulsorily pack medicines in units of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 or 500 gm/unit unless exemption is sought for some dose-wise administration.

Many a time the name of the medicine is printed only once on a complete strip of tablets/capsules, thereby causing confusion when the tablet/capsule under the printed name is consumed. It then becomes difficult to recognise the medicine in the strip. The NPPA should make it compulsory to print the name of the medicine on the complete strip under every tablet/capsule. It should also be compulsory to emboss the name of the medicine individually on each tablet/capsule.

Madhu Agrawal,

1775, Kucha Lattushah, Dariba, Chandni Chowk, Delhi – 110 006.

Railways’ ways

My father was to arrive from Chennai by the Tamil Nadu Express on November 18 morning. Before I left for the station to receive him, I called the Railway helpline service “139” to find out the exact time of arrival of train No. 2621. I was informed by the automatic answering machine that the train was on time and the last station was Hazrat Nizamuddin whereas I knew it’s New Delhi. So I double-checked by speaking to their Customer Care executive. He parroted the same answer. When I angrily told him that the last station was not Nizamuddin but New Delhi, he meekly agreed and promised to communicate the same to his seniors.

Last year, too, when my father came from Chennai, 139 gave a similar wrong answer and I remember pointing out the mistake just like this time.

Anyway I rushed to the station only to learn that they don’t issue platform tickets these days for security reasons. As I had to go to the platform to receive my 75-year-old father who does not know Hindi, I was in a fix. Seeing my angst, a policeman on duty suggested that I buy a ticket for the nearest railway station to enter the platform rather than waste time searching for platform tickets. I chuckled to myself about the ingenuity of Indians to hit upon ways to beat the system!

After standing in a queue for 20 minutes to buy a ticket to Faridabad, I realised it was already 7 a.m. and if the train was on time, it would have already arrived. The man behind the counter was behaving as if he was doing the commuters some favour. At long last he did me the favour and I, armed with a ticket to enter the station, went about searching for the electronic display to find out the requisite platform number. The new LCD TVs on display were filtering out information about other trains but not the one that I was looking for.

It then occurred to me that I should ring up 139 and check with the operator whether the train had reached its last destination. He proudly announced that the train had reached New Delhi at 7-05 a.m. My watch showed 7-10 a.m. but the train was not to be found at the station. I asked a few coolies and at least three of them confirmed that the train had not yet arrived. At that point, I heard the announcement that the train “is entering Platform No. 3”.

Walking towards the car parking, my father said, “Is this the place which is going to receive international tourists when they arrive for the Commonwealth Games next year?” Looking at his face I knew what he meant: all that filth and garbage that lie unattended at the mother of all stations on the Indian Railways!

K. Aravamudhan,

15, Devdoot Apartments, D-Block, Vikaspuri, New Delhi - 110 018.

Gateway to confusion

The India Gate hexagon is a central point in the New Delhi area through which very heavy traffic flows all the time. There are 11 radial roads to various destinations emerging out. If you miss the desired radial road, you had it: the traffic being one-way clockwise, you’ll have to take a full round to get to your desired radial road.

The signboards indicating the names of the radial roads are put up on the opposite side of the radial road in such a way that vehicles coming from the opposite direction block the view and one invariably misses the route. If signboards are put up in the middle — that is, on the divider — they will be clearly visible and one can take a turn confidently. In the run-up to the Commonwealth Games, beautiful signboards have been put up. Unfortunately, these have been put up by the side of the old signboards defeating the purpose.

One can see similar problems at a number of roundabouts on VIP routes in the NDMC area. Will the authorities concerned look into this and end the confusion before the prestigious Games?

Ravi Kumar,

121, Akash Darshan Apartments, Mayur Vihar Phase I, Delhi – 110 091.

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