COLONELS WHISKERS – MY OTHER HALF – Page 10

PAYING BACK : DEDICATED FOR LIFE TO FORCES WIDOWS AND VETERANS Col Sanjay Kamlakar Pande (Retd) after putting in 25 years of service took premature retirement in 2006. Since the days of his commanding the unit from 2003 to 2005 in Batalik (Kargil), he accompanied with his wife, SAVITA, have been visiting widows of their unit in their homes in deep rural Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and J & K. The couple was dedicated to the well being of the widows and provided every type of support like guidance for pension, grants, medical, CSD and any other type of assistance. Since retirement, the couple started visiting the widows and veterans of their unit in Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and J & K at least once in a year. They supported their venture from own pension and to-date have not taken any financial assistance from any organisation, whether government or non-government. The visits increased to about two times a year and for seven to nine days, in their own transport they went from village to village meeting widows, children and veterans. They extended every type of assistance and projected these problems regularly to authorities. Through these visits since last 15 years, they got very close to the widows and veterans and work selflessly at grass root level. They were fully aware of their day to day challenges, problems and continuously analyses the way out. In 2017, Savita, wife of Col Sanjay Kamlakar Pande (Retd) passed away and his children went abroad for work and education. Since then he has taken it as his life’s mission to be with widows and veterans. He is, from past three years, preparing a project that will revolutionise the way widows and veterans are handled. The “ONE WINDOW” or “ESM-WIDOW WINDOW” will bring all stakeholders on one platform with the users being ESM and Widows. This will connect the Central Government directly to the ESM-Widows and the complete intermediary chain automated/reduced drastically thus increasing the happiness quotient of users. In last 14 years he has travelled on his own, stays for the night with veterans in their homes, eats sleeps and roughs it out for no personal gain. He does not run an NGO, dose not seek funds and has found novel ways of ‘crowd funding’. Dainik Bhasker covered his pet project “Sammaan aur Jubaan”. Education Grants of government do not reach widows or reach very few. Kendriya Sainik Board has accepted that massive information gap exists. “Sammaan aur Jubaan” is about ensuring that a widows children minimum do the post graduation in a stream of their choice with whateven tuition fees. The benefactor directly transfers the complete amount to the widow. The benefactor just gives ‘jubaan’ or his word to pay to beneficiary when asked to. He does the complete coordination. No cash is collected. In three instalments the fees in complete is reimbursed to the widow. This is the fourth year of successful running of the initiative aptly named “SAVITA” (Sustainable And Valuable Initiative for Timely Assistance”. This is just a feeling, a virtual organisation with just one motive, SEWA at our own cost.