Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Man of a million blessings
|
D.R. Mehta has taken the Jaipur Foot forward by leaps and bounds
|
photo: V. SUDERSHAN
HUMANe D.R. Mehta manufactures limbs and smiles at BMVSS
He wears a benign look and a friendly smile. Unless he tells you that he also wears an artificial foot, you wouldn’t have guessed. Same as you can’t make out from his ‘executive’ looks that he spends most of his time among the
needy — specifically, those who need an artificial foot. He meets 100 such people every day he says.
Meet D.R. Mehta. The man who has made artificial limbs available to a record number of people through his charity organisation, Bhagwan Mahavir Viklang Sahatya Samiti (BMVSS), founded in 1975 in Jaipur. So far Mehta’s beneficiaries, cutting across 22 countries, number a million, the largest in the world.
Recalls this 70-year-old former IAS officer who served the Indian Government in several capacities, “In 1969 I had an accident and lost my right leg. I was confined to bed for five months. Doctors believed I would die, but I met one Dr. Bapna who fitted me with the Jaipur Foot and gave me a second life. This incident changed my attitude to life.”
There he also met master craftsman Ram Chand Sharma, a worker with Sawai Mansingh Hospital, who used to make artificial limbs with his own hands. Because of his age and lack of resources, he could barely make 40 limbs in 40 years. “I gave him the infrastructure through BMVSS in 1975. And in the first year we provided 59 limbs,” smiles Mehta.
BMVSS manufactures and distributes limbs, callipers, tricycles and hearing aids and gets surgery done for free. “Ninety-nine per cent of my beneficiaries are below the poverty line. It takes a few hours to four days to fit artificial limbs. Till then, the afflicted person stays with us free of cost. We have an open-door policy. Anyone can come to us any time,” says Mehta.
Pros and cons
But this generosity often lands him in trouble. There are “habitual beggars” who come repeatedly, take tricycles, etc. and sell them off. The gesture wins him donors too. But, “I never ask for fees from anyone. Those who can afford it, can donate. Once, we were falling short of funds so I declared to my patients that all of them have to make some contribution. The first one who came forward was a leprosy patient. He gave me all that he had — Rs.2. Such moments keep me going,” shares Mehta.
New design
BMVSS recently received a new design through the good offices of ISRO and the Chicago-based International Centre for Rehabilitation, for use manufacturing improved limbs for above-knee amputees. “They would be able to climb trees, ride bicycles, sit with folded legs, and bend to offer namaz,” says a proud Mehta.
Mehta even donates the technology to other countries. And soon two centres to provide artificial limbs are to be opened in Karachi and Islamabad. “The governments of the two countries are not involved in this. It has been done through ‘people-to-people’ contact,” says the man of a million blessings.
RANA SIDDIQUI
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
|
