In Dinshaw Mehta’s letter ("Hurdles to the Hospital,” Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, January 21, 2018) he claims: "Both Breach Candy Hospital and Dr Keki Turel had given offers which were palpably better than Krimson’s.” If this is true, why were these offers not placed before the Bombay High Court (BHC), despite the Court repeatedly requesting Mehta to do so?
Also, assuming there was an offer, what were the terms of that offer? Even if this is now only of academic or archival interest, it would be interesting to know what exactly the Breach Candy Hospital and Turel were offering! The fact remains: no such palpably better offer was ever placed before the managing committee of The Parsi Lying-in Hospital (PLIH) or, more importantly, the BHC.
Mehta keeps saying that no public advertisement was given, fully knowing that with the lease of the property having expired, it would have been palpably dangerous and foolhardy to do so.
Public memory is short and therefore it may perhaps not be inappropriate to remind Mehta and the community what Krimson’s offer was:
Lease for 30 years.
Existing dilapidated structure to be demolished and new state of the art, super specialty hospital to be constructed and equipped at the cost of Krimson.
Krimson to run and manage the hospital.
Krimson to pay 3.5% to five percent of the gross revenue as lease rental per annum with minimum guarantee of one to one-and-a-half crore rupees per annum.
Rent free period of 18 months.
Security deposit of four crore rupees payable in a staggered manner.
Ten percent of inpatients and outpatients to be treated free, being members of the Parsi community. Consumables to be excluded and to be paid for by the patients.
Collector’s lease rent, premium and all other costs and charges to be paid by Krimson.
An area of 2,500 to 5,000 sq ft in the new building to be provided as office space for the Bombay Parsi Punchayet.
An area of 500 sq ft as office plus 300 sq ft as storage to be provided to the PLIH Trust.
At the end of the 30-year period, the structure to be handed over by Krimson to the lessor (i.e. the Hospital) and equipment to be purchased by the lessor at its option.
In 2015 Mehta kept saying that the property was worth Rs 200 crores and that the Hospital’s managing committee is handing over the Hospital to Krimson for a song.
Interestingly, Kodak House (same vicinity) with no municipal reservation and no lease restriction of hospital use only, was recently sold for only Rs 74 crores. The built up area of Kodak House is almost identical to the PLIH property. Further, Kodak house is structurally sound whereas PLIH requires total reconstruction. NOSHIR H. DADRAWALA
Managing committee member of The Parsi Lying-in Hospital and trustee of Bombay Parsi Punchayet
noshir@capindia.in