Travel to Delhi for treatment - Beware of Kamal Mehta!!

[pabloneruda]

Many people from BD go to the Escorts Heart Institute and Research Center in New Delhi, India for cardiac treatment and surgery. It is a bit expensive compared to Indian standard, but I think this is a world class cardiac center and an excellent choice for those who do not want to do cardiac surgery in Bangladesh, and thinks that they must go abroad. But we must spread the word to those who are going to Escorts - "Kamal Mehta hoite shabdhan!! Beware of Kamal Mehta"!! He is a very sophisticated fraud, and his business is providing housing/lodging to Bangladeshis. But he is very unscrupulous, and he cheats the Bangladeshi people by charging them 3/4 times more than usual Delhi costs for the services he provide. In every step he rips off Bangladeshis. He and his sons run this very profitable business, and they are now millioniares just by riping off the simple-minded, humble Bangladeshis! The following is a brief description of how this shrewd, crooked Kamal Meheta rips off BD people in each step of their treatment at Escorts :-

1) He receives Bangladeshi patients (and their companions) from Delhi airport and brings to his guest house. For that he charges 1000 Rupees (one way), while for the same distance the regular taxi fare is 250 Rupees.

2) He has several guest houses. These are 3-4 bedroom flats that he have rented in Delhi, and each patient (and his companions) gets one room. The flat condition is not bad, but the rent is unusually high! He will not tell you the rent clearly, but at the end he will charge you somewhere between 900 - 1300 Rupees for each room per day! However, near the hospital, you can get same type of (or even better) rooms (either in good hotels, or in flats) for 500 - 700 Rupees per day! What a rip off!

3) To pay the high fees of the hospital, you will certainly need to exchange your dollars. He will tell you that he has money exchange business and he will give you the best possible market rates! That is a big, flat lie! He will NOT give you the best market rate - he will give you much LOWER than that day's market/official rate. Escorts needs the full fee deposited at once (which is around 1 lakh 95 thousand rupees), and if you exchange that amount from Kamal Meheta, you are guranteed to loose AT LEAST 5,000 Rupees at once!

4) He provides home cooked meals - breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea - all cooked in Bangladeshi style. I have to admit that the food quality is really good - it is very tasty, but for that you pay 2-3 times more than the market price. For example, he charges 70 Rupees for Lunch for one person; a cup of tea is 4 Rupees!! Besides, he and his men are very dishonest...they will always exaggerate the total number of meals that you would have while staying in his guest house. Once they are in, a patient and his companions have to stay at least for 2 weeks in his guest house, and at the end you cannot exactly remember the number of meals you have had during this stressful period of treatment of your beloved one. He uses this opportunity to rip you off! While I was there, I used to keep logs of how many meals per day we had, and at the end found that the amount he charged for meals far exceeded that the amount was actually due! We tried to show our records, but he would not agree to that! What a scumbag!

5) He would tell you to roam in and around in Delhi with his car. He has a few cars dedicated to this entire business. In the beginning he would not tell you about the charges, and you would not be suspicious about anything! But guess what! If you take his car - for example - to go to a shopping center one day in Delhi - he will charge you AT LEAST 1000 Rupees for that trip. A day trip to Agra/Tajmahal by his "taxi" would cost you 4000 Rupees, whereas you can find very luxurious and guided one-day tour to Agra by outside companies for as low as 1500 Rupees.

6) Finally, when he takes you the airport at the end of your stay in Delhi, he again charges 1000 Rupees! So if you decide to stay at his guest house, your journey will begin with a rip-off, the whole time you will be ripped off, and it will end with a finishing touch of another rip-off.

These are all my personal experience. If you want to know more, please feel free to contact me. He manages to do this rip-off because of mainly two reasons :-
1) He and his handomse sons are very well-behaved with all the Bangladeshis...they will always comfort you by saying that they are your relatives in Delhi and they are doing it for "sheba" purposes. What a crap! But the way they present this crap, it is very easy for all the Bangladeshis to fall into his trap. He is not harmful otherwise, and indeed boarding and dining at his place is very comfortable - but it all comes for a outrageous price, accompanied by well-crafted lies in every step.
2) His rates are all verbal. There is nothing written. He will not even give you a written receipt for your costs! Also, his trick is to present you a "bill" at the end of your stay, when you are just leaving for the airport to catch your Bangladesh flight. So, even you think there is "gorbor" with his charges, you don't have time to dispute. However, sometime during the middle of your stay he will demand some "advance" from you without presenting any bill to you, so by the time you leave you will already have paid the most of his outrageous charges!!

The only chance to avoid his rip-off is to stay away from him and his guest house!

-Neruda
NY, USA.