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Money in by Dec, hospice land in June!
The devastating tsunami resulted in an emotional outpour from the NRIs in US, writes Lalit K Jha.
The devastating tsunami in coastal areas of South India last year resulted in an emotional outpour from the Non-Resident Indians in the US.
So much so that in just one fun-raiser dinner of few hours at New York on December 30, some four days after the natural disaster struck South and South East Asia, the NRIs got collected $100,000 (nearly Rs. 45 lakh).
Eager to help out their countrymen in distress - who were indeed calling for help all over -- NRIs under the banner of Association of Indians in New York wanted to construct a small hospital in a remote village of coastal areas of Tamil Nadu, which was devastated by the tsunami.
Several of the NRIs and the association then approached the local administration and the State Government for necessary permission to set up the small hospital with modern, but basic facilities, on a fast track basis. The objective being, to start providing the medicare within a month, if not early.
A few of them even flew to Tamil Nadu to pursue the matter. Local NGOs too pitched in. Finally, they have managed to get the land some six months. The agreement in this regard could be signed only last week to construct a hospital at Sulerikattukuppan village, some 50 kilometres from Chennai.
"We collected the money within a matter of two hours. It was such an emotional outpour for all of us. But the local administration took such a long time to complete the necessary formalities to allot the land and give us the permission to proceed ahead with the project," said one of the NRIs, requesting anonymity as he feared that otherwise the administration might create hurdle in the implementation of the project, through which they want to help the poor fishermen and the children of the village, which was almost destroyed due to tsunami.
Once the land has been allotted and permission granted, the NRIs have made it sure that the hospital begin running in next three-four months. "Every thing is ready. We were just waiting for it. It would start treating patients in the next few months," another NRI said.
Still making no complaints, the NRI made an innocent remark: "We had to follow a large number of procedures and complete formalities to get the project started. We are grateful that we have got the permission for this. After all, we all how the Government works?"
As the project got delayed - or while the file was moving at its own pace - the scope of the project was gradually expanded with more donations pouring in and many other non-governmental organizations, corporate bodies and banks joining hands.
"This is the positive aspect of it," the NRI said. Now the project is worth Rs 7 crores. It would be run by a local committee mostly comprising of members of the Chennai Rotary Club.
"It is now a big project. It would now also have a school, besides the ten-bed hospital for the villagers and its neighbourhood," he said. The hospital would provide "free" medicare facilities to the patients.
