BIJAPUR; 01; June: With the country bring gripped in the Covid pandemic and numerous people displaying their generosity by extending any possible help to affected people, now some of the Non Resident Indians (NRIs) Kannadigas have turned savior for Covid patients by supplying medical equipments to different parts of Karnataka.
Having seen the plight of the people and looking at the weak medical infrastructure, the Kannadigas living abroad have come together to improve the medical infrastructure of the State within their limits.
The NRI mainly residing in Canada, London etc. have made efforts to donate various medical equipment. The man who took the lead to bring various NRI Kannadigas for the cause is Nandakumar Chowdappa, an NRI living in Canada.
An Architect by profession, Chowdappa prepared a plan to contact various Kannadigas living in foreign nations under a project titled ‘Usiragali Karnataka’ ( Let Karnataka become our breath).
Chowdappa got a group of people formed to coordinate with officials back in Karnataka and collect the funds for the purchase of medical equipment from different NRIs.
The other NRIs such as Kiran Bartur and Vishal Girisagar are part of the team whose job was to be in touch with the different officials here for coordination.
“ When we started contacting people to join the group to work for the cause, we found people from Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa, Kitchener, London etc came forward . Our team also included several medical experts as well “, said Chowdappa.
Since getting the ground situation known is important, Chowdappa said that they contacted senior IPS officer, Seemanth Kumar Singh and other IAS officers such as Kishor Bhattad.
“ During our conversation, we found that the most critical thing that was needed is the oxygen mainly for the rural areas as the medical facilities were too weak”, he said.
Stating the collecting funds was not a challenge but to send it to Indian by following all the stipulated norms for donation. Besides they are also purchasing various equipment, permission was taken to transport them to India through proper channels.
“ Together we collected nearly 30 lakhs for the cause which were used to purchase machines such as 25 oxygen concentrators”, he said.
With the help of IPS officer, Singh, the equipment was given to different parts of the State such as Karkal, Udupi, Gadad, Belagavi etc.
Of them eight concentrators were given to Jamkhandi in Bagalkot district.
“ We would like to continue our service in the coming days to help the Indian government to deal with the pandemic. We are exploring more options to give more equipments”, he said.
