Zamir Ahmad
Dr Sabahat Azeem is an extraordinary personality and interesting as well. Even without meeting him, you can have a fair idea of his multi-lateral persona by just looking at his CV. When you talk to the man, who is in his early thirties, you will find him a financial wizard, an IT expert, a management guru, a motivational speaker and a concerned medico all at the same time.
After completing MBBS from Aligarh Muslim University, he sat for IAS examinations. As an IAS officer posted in a north-eastern state of India he conceived a plan to take governance to masses through use of technology and sent it to the union government.
The Central government was, at that time, mulling over a similar scheme and asked Sabahat to be in close contact for finalizing a path-breaking IT initiative any country has ever taken. This plan was later known as National E-governance programme.
The project, inter alia, envisages setting up of one hundred thousand IT kiosks — Common Service Centers (CSC) – throughout India through Public-Private Partnership. Dr. Sabahat was too eager to implement this close-to-his-heart project but found his job of Director IT in a state government too confining.
He said good-bye to his plush job and motivated a large infrastructure leasing group to invest in the initiative. This resulted in formation of separate company that eventually landed up with the contract for implementation of the CSC scheme in five most difficult states of north and eastern India.
The number of CSCs to be set up in these states was 28000. Sabahat became the CEO of the company and created a business model that created flourishing entrepreneurs in remote villages. He was able to set up all the 28000 centers in a record time of 2 years.
Sabahat tied up with various private and public service providers in the areas of banking, insurance, education, entertainment, heath care etc to position the IT Kiosks as one-stop shops in rural India catering to a diverse set of needs of one and all.
But that was not the end of it. Sabahat says he believes in being his own boss and pushing his ideas at his own cost and risk. He offered to buy the company from its owners and offered a huge price of Rs 200 crore.
The owners were not impressed and declined the offer. Was Sabahat disappointed? No. In fact this was to be a blessing in disguise. He quit the company that was paying him an annual package of Rs. five million. He started a new venture. He had lost his father sometime back in one of the prestigious Indian hospitals. Being a medico himself, he understood the shady world of commercialized health care.
He thought of setting up a one-of-its-kind health care network that was based on ethics, transparency and was affordable as well. With absolutely no money in sight he set off on the new uncharted course. After immense leg work and a lot of presentations he was able to rope in investors who valued just his idea at Rs. 40 crore and were willing to buy a 20 per cent stake in the idea.
They had heard about his earlier venture and knew that the owners of that company valued it at more than Rs. 200 crore. Sabahat offered them just 10 per cent and started off the work. The idea is still nascent but he has already got the required funding from Private Equity fund. He dreams of providing health care of global standards at affordable costs to common people. He has named his venture as Glocal Health Care.
What happened to the CSC Scheme in J&K is but another story!
