The economic slowdown might have adversely affected the financial health of the MCD, but the civic body is not willing to compromise on the health facilities it provides for the residents of Delhi. To ensure that the Municipal Panchkarma Hospitals provide the best of services, the Corporation plans to send therapists from the hospitals to Kerala to learn the right massage techniques.

The MCD has seven Panchkarma Hospitals under its aegis. Each of these hospitals needs at least five to seven massage therapists; the MCD, however, has only ten therapists in all for the hospitals, none of them trained professionally for giving massages.

However, with massage therapy becoming popular in the city, the Corporation plans to bring in expert therapists and also plans to train its own masseurs. “Earlier, not many people were aware of the massage therapy. That is not the case any more. And since Kerala is known to have the best Ayurvedic therapies in the world, we want our own masseurs to study the massage styles used in Kerala and implement them in Delhi,” said V K Monga, Chairman of the Municipal Health Committee.

The MCD will also hire more masseurs to fill up the vacant posts. “We will start recruiting more specialists to fill in vacancies. The specialists will also be sent to Kerala for the course,” added Monga. The MCD plans to start recruiting from April and then send the new employees to Kerala for a six-month training programme. Their services will be available at the hospitals by November.