Saturday, December 13, 2008

An update on the Arun Chitte fund...

from M and her group of pals, and also their laudable efforts to help Sunita Yadav, mentioned in an earlier posts.

Thank you for your generous contributions. We have now managed to collect over Rs. 4 lakhs and are receiving more contributions next week.

An update in terms of utilisation:

1. We are coordinating our relief effort directly with Mrs. A.N. Roy (wife of Mr. A.N. Roy, Director General of Police, Maharashtra) and her daughter, Richa Roy. Mrs. Roy is working with victims in various hospitals and is putting us in touch with families that need financial assistance.

2. We understand from Mrs. Roy that the Police Department is providing a compensation of Rs. 25 lakhs to families of members of the police force who passed away during the attacks and that Mr. Arun Chitte (Inspector Salaskar’s driver who was killed during the attacks) is likely to receive this compensation. We are working with Mr. A.N. Roy’s office to find out whether Mr. Arun Chitte’s family is receiving this contribution. If they are, we will not be contributing to this family as initially planned and will instead utilise the funds that we have collected to help other needy families.

3. We visited the J.J. Hospital today to meet with Mrs. Sunita Yadav and Sheetal Yadav. We obtained information about them through a social worker whom we are coordinating with to identify needy victims as well as Mrs. Roy.

4. Sunita Yadav (who is around 23 years old) lost her husband during the attack at CST. She and Sheetal Yadav (her baby daughter who is 4 months old) have suffered bullet injuries and are still in hospital. The family has no money for immediate expenses, including food, medicine and clothes. While the Government has issued her a compensation cheque of Rs. 50,000, her brother-in-law has absconded with the cheque as well as Sunita's husband's death certificate (without which she cannot file a fresh compensation claim).

5. We have given Sunita Yadav Rs. 15,000 in cash today for immediate expenses and will be contributing around Rs. 2 lakhs or more to her once she establishes a bank account after her discharge from hospital (expected tomorrow). We are also buying a few sets of clothes for her and the baby since they have no clothes except those that they are wearing (which have been donated by the hospital).

6. We are also assisting Sunita with obtaining a duplicate of, and registering, her deceased husband’s death certificate and filing compensation claims with his employer (for release of pension etc.), the railways (who we understand have promised compensation) and the state government. Mrs. Roy is helping Sunita find employment and we will be working with her on this to the extent possible.

We will keep you posted on utilisation of the funds. Thank you for your support

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

http://www.hindu.com/2008/12/15/stories/2008121558941200.htm

Not sure if you have been able to get in touch with these people, sorry if you've put it up on this blog already..