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Showing posts with label courtesan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label courtesan. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Pune Municipal Corporation to consult "courtesan" on being smart

Finally Pune Municipal Corporations proposal for being “smart city’ is to be prepared by  “McKinsey & company” that has been compared with a courtesan La Belle Otero. (Courtesan means a prostitute, especially one with wealthy or upper-class clients.) Yesterday Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) passed a proposal to appoint McKinsey and Company as consultant to prepare the smart city plan (SCP) to be submitted to Union government.

Photo Courtsey - https://upload.wikimedia.org/
Amount to be spent on this proposal  is whopping 2.5 crore rupees and it may be the highest amount than any city covered under this scheme . SmartCities is Prime minister Narendra Modi’s dream concept and Pune is one of the 100 cities selected under this scheme.PMC has to now send proposal in this regard  and to prepare this proposal PMC has appointed McKinsey as consultant.

Duff McDonald, who spent four years researching “McKinsey and its Secret Influence on American Business” has compared it with La Belle Otero, a prostitute who amassed a fortune from Europe’s royalty at the turn of the 20th Century. She became one of the most sought-after courtesans in the world. Kings, princes and dukes would pay anything to sleep with her. “McKinsey’s fees are so high, they are spiritually related,” McDonald says. “What customer who pays those fees will ever admit that it wasn’t worth it? Do you get up the next day and go, ‘Wow that was a waste of a million’?”

Photo courtsey - http://www.histoire-image.org/
No doubt politicians and bureaucrats of democratic India compare themselves with kings and dukes and don’t bother to spend public money on courtesans. That may be the reason when this proposal was being discussed in standing committee of PMC one congress party leader intervened on phone and all party members passed the proposal in pre decided manner.

It is not the case that McKinsey’s record was always good, this is the company who has advised world famous telephone company AT& T that mobile phones have no future. This is the company whose former director Rajat Gupta was sentenced 2 years jail term for insider trading by U.S. District Judge in New York .

Now let see how PMC officials have played a trick to award this contract to McKinsey. The docket placed in standing committee says that it was necessary to call tenders from the panel of consultants finalized by central government. However that is not true. It is fact that the Ministry of Urban Development has technically qualified a panel of consulting firms and the States/UTs were at liberty to draw upon this panel. However the States had also  the option of appointing a consulting firm outside the panel by following transparent and fair Procedures .

Photo courtsey - http://gmatclub.com/
These firms had to be selected under least cost selection (LCS) basis. In this case the Client has to select the lowest proposal among those that passed the minimum technical score. And here lies the trick. The scoring numbers had to be given by PMC officials and off course McKinsey got highest numbers. PMC proposal in standing committee doesn’t speak of any LCS base.

The cost awarded in this case is exorbitant and may be the highest in India.
Photo Courtsey - https://upload.wikimedia.org/
The state of Bihar has invited open tenders and estimated cost of preparing proposals for 3  cities has been drawn to 40 lakh rupees for each city, Punjab has estimated such  2 crore rupees for 3 cities , while Jaipur development authority has also estimated this cost to the tune of 40 lakh rupees. However PMC being controversially different and smart it will spend 2.5 crore rupees on same thing.

Interestingly the core infrastructure elements in a Smart City are, adequate water supply, Sanitation, solid waste management, efficient urban mobility and public transport, affordable housing,  e-Governance  and health. And PMC has already spent crores of rupees by appointing consultants on these issues. Then what different is McKinsey going to suggest for Pune?.

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