“Disease is not cured by pronouncing the name of the medicine but by taking it”. A high level committee which undertook the study on the credit to SSIs revealed and acknowledged that sickness even in large industries is a worldwide phenomenon. Out of 3.4 million units 3.4 lakh units were reported sick.
Out of this, only 14000 units were found eligible for rehabilitation (Kapur Committee). It is obvious that sickness symptoms were not diagnosed leave alone the question of preventing. This situation has rendered idle huge resources in terms of land, manpower, capital and machinery.
A primary preventive measure is to preserve health by removing the precipitating causes and determinants of departures from good health. To put it in epidemiological terms the aim of primary prevention is to reduce the incidence of disease and injury. Eliminating the causative agents can do this: for example, small pox virus by pasteurising raw milk to kill the pathogenic organism found in it.
Image Source: msnbc.com
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Secondary prevention is to detect and correct departures from good health as early as possible. In other words, to reduce the prevalence of disease and disability we can often accomplish this with screening products that detect disease before it is manifested by symptoms or signs.
Screening needs to be combined with counseling about reduction of risks to health if it is to be fully effective. Health promotion is defined as the process of enabling people to increase control over and improve their health.
An individual or group must be able to identify and realize the aspiration to satisfy needs and to change or cope with environment. Health is a resource for everyday life, a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources involving physical capabilities.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
It is difficult for anybody to counter the statement: ‘prevention is better than cure’. But when sickness fully overtakes a person one has to reach to both medical and surgical treatment for purposes of cure. It is also common knowledge that such treatment should be timely and at the hands of a competent doctor. Proper diagnosis should precede such treatment.
The analogy seems perfect when we apply it to industry. Cases are not wanting where the doctor administered a wrong medicine. Diagnostic studies have revealed interesting dimensions to the problem of sickness in the units:
1. Some SSI entrepreneur took advantage of all the facilities offered by every agency, Governments, financial institutions and markets and misused the assistance.
2. The mushroom growth of bogus entrepreneurs can be avoided by alertness of sponsoring agencies and financial institutions by two-level screening.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
3. There are instances of entrepreneurs who have set up units on their assured capability to access markets in the Government sector through political connections and the moment the political friends were out of power the assumptions failed and the units collapsed.