SAMMAAN AUR JUBAAN – HONOUR AND COMMITMENT

SAMMAAN AUR JUBAAN – HONOUR AND COMMITMENT

Simple words. Honour and Commitment. We will HONOUR the ARMED FORCES WIDOWS and stand by our COMMITMENT to look after them. These two words have the power to educate thousands.

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.

WIDOWS LIFE

Did she choose to be a widow? It matters if her husband died in harness or after retirement, it matters if he died as a battle casualty or as physical casualty, it matters whether he had a gallantry award or not, it matters if he died for a cause “attributable” to military service or not. His widow matters if she can become part of glamour of Ex Service Men rallies.

• She did not choose to become a widow.
• She did not select the place of death of her husband.
• She did not choose mode of her husband’s death.
• She did not choose to be moderately educated.

Why punish her just because she is a widow?

A typical day of a Widows Life. A typical day in the life of a forces widow is to look after her children, school, home, in-laws, dependent parents, social requirements etc. There is the lifetime grief of loss of husband to which she has no one supporting her. Deep in rural India where more than 95% widows reside, the problems do not end here.

There is pension to manage, nearest medical facilities are in district, forces are not around, station headquarters are far, Canteen Services Department (CSD) facilities are non-existent and practically there is no connect with forces. There is illiteracy to compound the problems, forces communicate in English, and a widow cannot trust anyone around her. Greed makes her easiest target.

An odd colleague of her husband is in touch and cannot help. Going to ExServicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS), Station HQ or CSD is a daylong affair since bus is the only cheap transport. She cannot ever go if the children are school going. The facilities hence are practically not utilised.

Official communication on schemes is at Zilla Sainik Board, pinned on boards with hundreds of letters. No one can ever come to know about any scheme.

DAILY STRUGGLE

Veterans and Widows get their pension, and that is all. They have no access to rest. There is no last mile connectivity. ECHS decides to change cards to upgrade to 64KB. The ESM and Widow must do complete paperwork as is it is being applied for the first time. The number of times they will be required to go to ECHS cannot be predicted. Their life explained in initial part refers.

Records do not have proper documentation and missing Part II orders is normal. They simply intimate ‘Sons Part II order not found in records”. ECHS is blacked out for Veteran and Widow. The onus is on the veteran/widow to get the Part II Order.

CSD Cards require renewal each year so does ‘life Certificate” process of banks. CSD Card can be used by anyone so far as pin number is given, ECHS is slightly difficult. Pension ceases in bank if life certificate is not submitted.

The onus of taking benefit out of Welfare Schemes lies on veteran/widow. A simple cash grant for daughter’s marriage cannot be obtained since the repetitive nature of paperwork is bound to have errors. Out of frustration they leave it. Children Education Grant again goes largely unutilised.

SAMMAAN AUR JUBAAN – HONOUR AND COMMITMENT

SAMMAAN AUR JUBAAN – HONOUR AND COMMITMENT is not an NGO, it is not a business, it is not a ‘no profit-no loss’ organisation, it simply gathers people who contribute their talent and time in order to find good people who want to do something for Forces Widows in terms of monetary help and ensure that each rupee donated reaches the destination with ZERO LOSS IN RANSIT. It reimburses 100% tuition fees of all children of deceased armed forces personnel up to post graduation level.

Why Reimburse? Common understanding is that there are sufficient resources at the disposal of a forces widow. The fact is otherwise. Most children leave education midway or after 12^th due to lack of money. Even brilliant children leave education. We want to give them an opportunity to pursue education without worrying about fees.

Samman Aur Jubaan is a commitment that calls to ‘serve’ with a promised zero monetary gain to the people running it.

Human-to-Human Samman Aur Jubaan  is a network of Humans-to-Humans (H2H). Individual to individual. Good People to Armed Forces Widows. Organisations, companies, departments, offices, NGOs etc. have NO ROLE to play. They are not welcome in whatever capacity or form.

Who Donates? Samman Aur Jubaan is founded by just two beliefs:

• There is no dearth of good human beings in the world who want to help monetarily.
• These good human beings want to genuinely help the Armed Forces Widows.

What are the ‘Problems’ of Good Human Beings? Good human beings:

• do not know ‘who’ and ‘how’ of convert their goodness.
• are ready to contribute talent, money, time and most importantly their ‘intent’.
• look for an opportunity to contribute with their talent.
• want to offer cash help to Armed Forces Widows directly.
• do not want an intermediary to route his money further to a widow.
• want their help to go directly to the needy without any reduction.
• want someone trustworthy to help them achieve their desire.

Why ‘Good Human Beings’ don’t trust ? Reason for mistrust are the following:

• Their donations are given to an organisation and not to the beneficiary.
• NGOs are most notorious, and most find ways to give themselves an ‘official’ image.
• Organisations are translucent.
• Organisations take out their ‘administrative expenditures’ from donations collected.
• No organisation gives out figures of yearly administrative expenditure.
• Money once donated goes into a black hole.
• Good People have no way to find if their money ever reached the beneficiary. They avoid donating.

Why should ‘Good Human Beings’ trust us?

• SAMMAAN AUR JUBAAN is NOT an organisation/company/NGO or a body.
• There is no committee, no group & no management and no names of famous personalities attached. In fact, they are unwelcome.
• We do not collect cash and we have no bank account.
• We do not accept donations from organisations.
• There is no facility to park funds.
• You want to sponsor education of a Forces Widows child? Do it. You transfer your money to her directly. Your last rupee reaches her.
• Your contribution is transferred DIRECTLY BY YOU i.e. from Benefactor to Beneficiary.
• It is Human to Human and about being Humane. We rebuild faith in humanity.
• App is a facilitator.
• Transparency 100% because nothing exists except ‘sewa’.

JUBAAN

• ‘Benefactors’ give their commitment in terms of the amount of money they can offer per quarter, yearly and for how many years.
• This is their JUBAAN, COMMITMENT, WORD.
• The total value of JUBAAN becomes our virtual ‘collection’ with the money safely with each donor/benefactor. Not one rupee moved.
• Details of the individual are uploaded to enable contact.
• That’s it. The task is over once commitment is given. Next time the Benefactor will hear from us is when he is required to fulfil his JUBAAN.

SAMMAAN

• Honour and Dignity of a Forces Widow is foremost consideration.
• A widow is not by choice. She must be respected by ensuring her safety and ensuring that the monetary help does not lead to her being made to feel inferior.
• On behalf of the children, the Forces Widows are the recipients of the money transferred by Benefactor.
• Benefactor transfers the money DIRECTLY to the Forces Widows account.
• Aim is simple. Get the goodness of benefactors reach beneficiaries with ZERO loss of money in transit.

SEWADAAR

• “SEWADAAR” who will simply serve the cause at no cost. Serve only because they loved uniform. SEWADAAR can be any humane human being.
• They may contribute by their talent or by contacting forces widows or by getting donors.

Development of an App

• We launched our effort to develop an App for SAMMAAN AUR JUBAAN on 14 Nov 2020, on the auspicious day of Diwali.
• The App will bring the Donors (Benefactors), the Workers (Sewadaars) and Forces Widows with children under education on one platform.
• Aim is to completely reimburse tuition fees till the children complete post-graduation.
• The App can be downloadable by any Benefactor, but Beneficiaries can upload details only after vetting.
• Making the app in a way that we do not get to touch even one rupee.

PAYING BACK : DEDICATED FOR LIFE TO FORCES WIDOWS AND VETERANS

I, Col Sanjay Kamlakar Pande (Retd) after putting in 25 years of service took premature retirement in 2006. Since the days of commanding the unit from 2003 to 2005 in Batalik (Kargil), accompanied by my wife, during leave, we have been visiting widows of our unit in their homes in deep rural Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and J & K. We dedicated ourselves to the wellbeing of the widows and provided every type of support like guidance for pension, grants, medical, CSD and any other type of assistance.

Since retirement, we started visiting the widows and veterans in Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and J & K at least once in a year. We did it at our own 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. We went in our own transport from village to village meeting widows, children and veterans. We extended every type of assistance and projected these problems regularly to authorities.

Through these visits since last 15 years, we got very close to the widows and veterans and worked selflessly at grass root level. We were fully aware of their day to day challenges, problems and continuously analysed the way out.

In 2017, Savita, my wife, passed away and children went abroad for work and education. Since then I have taken it as my life’s mission to continue what we both did together but now alone.

I am 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. Lukewarm response from Govt organisations is not very motivating.

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 widows children minimum do the post-graduation in a stream of their choice with whatever tuition fees.

Col Sanjay Pande

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