Eating out... and going to hospital..!

Indians are chomping on more and more pizzas — but the success story is a subplot in the growth of the eating-out-of-home story, says Business Line (A topping performance, Business Line, Brand Line, August 19, 2010).

A big bite..!

A few interesting pieces of information came out of this article:

According to the Food Franchising Report 2009, Indians consumed 3.5 million pizzas each month in 2008 as compared to 1.5 million in 2001.  Americans polish off at least 100 acres of pizzas a day (that's 350 slices of pizza per second), while over 90 per cent of Britons eat pizza at least once a week. About 466 million pizzas were sold in Briton last year.  The Food Franchising Report 2009 notes that 30 per cent of working singles eat out at least once a month, with a majority spending at least Rs 101-150 per outing. Urban Indians now have a meal out of home six times a month compared to 2.7 times in 2003.  The report says the retail food sector in India is likely to grow to $150 billion by 2025 from $70 billion in 2008.  The projections are that the size of the world food industry will be $400 billion in 2025 — clearly Indian mouths would be a big contributor to the global pie.

Thus, from a lending / investment perspective, restaurants appear to be interesting opportunities.  Unlike industrial units, such food outlets, tend to get food items on credit and sell on cash, thus almost not requiring working capital.  With food habits changing across the country and eating out becoming more and more an entrenched habit, food outlets are bound to increase in number as also do more business in future.  Any outlet that is run on hygienic lines with a reasonalble pricing policy, would attract enough customers and can become safe bets for lending by banks and for investment by VCs.

While eating out has become more entrenched today than what it was even 10 or 5 years ago, what is causing worry is the contribution of junk food to the health issues confronting the masses today.  The stress levels are quite high and even young suffer from heart attacks.  Life style diseases are emerging as silent killers.  The high cost of quality healthcare has made it almost unaffordable to a very large segment of the society and is a matter of deep concern with no solution in sight.  While government hospitals remain a clear 'no' for the middle class population, not everyone in the country especially from the unorganised sector and the rural masses have access to mediclaim facility or quality healthcare in their areas.

It is in this context, the news that Glocal Healthcare will build 2,000 hospitals across India in five years, appeared interesting to me (Source:  New venture seeks to start low-cost rural hospital chain, Mint, August 19, 2010).

Will Sri Damodaran & his team succeed where the Indian Governments have failed?

Mint says that this healthcare venture could potentially redefine India’s private healthcare business in terms of cost and pricing.  With former civil servants behind the show, let's hope they plug the gaps in the health care delivery mechanism that is obvious today.  What is interesting is that this ambitious 'low-cost' health care venture is being funded by venture capital firms and not by the government.  Maybe this is another case of tapping the bottom of the pyramid for making money.  

Even as I wish this venture all the success, I hope that Government would contribute something to such projects either as a grant or interest free long term loan so that borrowings are kept at reasonable levels and the final healthcare cost for the rural masses remain at an affordable level.

Finding the Naxals’ Achilles heel

Well-executed strategic principles can nullify tactical and logistical advantages that the extremists have achieved argues Raghu Raman in "Finding the Naxals’ Achilles heel" (Mint, June 3, 2010).

Excerpts from the article:

The dice seems to have been loaded in favour of the guerrillas. Since they can choose any target, the guerrillas can leverage economy of effort, surprise and shock action. The small size and mobility of their cadres allow greater flexibility and ability to concentrate and then disperse hundreds of fighters to overwhelm security forces. And since the attacks are hit-and-run in style, the guerrillas can sustain operations with lower resource drain and retain the initiative by striking at different locations according to their own timetable.

The nation needs to realize that there is no quick-fix remedy, and maintaining relentless momentum across both the military thrust and dialogue channel is the only way forward. By its very nature, the former is highly visible, while the latter is and should remain discreet until some concrete rapprochement is achieved. 

Every soldier who has been in combat will testify to the “fog of war” where judgements are in error and mistakes are made. And those mistakes come in body bags. Becoming hysterical at each setback doesn’t help the morale of forces which have to go back and confront the guerrillas. It also shakes their confidence in the nation’s support to them. Endless critique of poor training and equipment only builds the guerrilla into a larger-than-life figure. This is where maintenance of morale comes in. The security forces have a tough job on their hands. The last thing they need is ambivalence of purpose or a “patrol by patrol” dissection by armchair experts.

Will our media & politicians do the right thing?

Even as there is a debate going on about which strategy to pursue - development or aggressive security operation, there comes news which says that "Naxal-hit districts perform well in rural job scheme" (Mint, June 2, 2010). 

While this is happy news, there are some who question the credibility of the numbers.  Mint reports that S.L. Rao, former director general of the National Council of Applied Economic Research has questioned that if there is a problem in implementation in safe areas, then it’s difficult to believe the implementation is as good in troubled, tribal areas.

The security forces need to pursue the terrorists and their sympathisers relentlessly.  The government's administrative machinery should pursue their development agenda relentlessly.  The faster both are done, it is better.  Otherwise, we are in for serious trouble.  With threat from terrorists across the border (both Pak & Bangladesh), continuous infiltration from Bangladesh resulting in changing demographics in border areas, menacing China breathing down the neck on Arunachal, the naxal threat in more than 90 districts across various States... we are in for serious trouble.  If the response of India, Indian politicians and Indian media in the past is any indication, then our future appears bleak.