A WINNING BATTLE

SHEFFALI CHIKERMANE on the rehabilitation of Ranchi’s lepers
For many, leprosy is a disease, which makes its patient the most hated human creature on earth. Although there are hundred of societies and NGOs, who are working exclusively for lepers, yet, Ranchi, is a place which constitutes more than 2,000 lepers.
Recently, a ‘different’, person came into the life of the Ranchi lepers. He is Assistant commandant, Army Head Quarter, Ranchi, Colonel, Subhash Bakshi. People call him Mr. ‘Mother Teresa’. For his work among lepers, Col. Bakshi has been awarded the ‘Birsa Award’ by MECON (Metallurgical & Engineering Consultants).
Under the banner of ‘Yogda Samaj Seva’, Col. Bakshi, at the cost of Rs. Five lakh, has provided these 102 lepers, apart from a concrete house, a small nursing home with a doctor available once a week, all kinds of necessary medicines, a reading cum TV room, permanent water supply and a public convenience. The Ranchi Regional Development Authority has also contributed Rs. One lakh for the development of ‘Nirmala Kusht Colony’.
For Col, S. Bakshi, lepers are not new. He has been serving the lepers for a long time. He has even dedicated his services exclusively for the most oppressed, helpless and hated class of society, the lepers. Asserts Col. Bakship  “On the banks of the river hermu, rigt in the heart of the  city for the last 35 years, 48 families suffering from leprosy have been fighting a battle against physical, social, economical. Psychological and spiritual breakdowns”.
What is appreciable about the lepers is, a gradual change in their attitude, confidence and responsibility. They are now found to be more active, more sensible, more aggressive to assert their right and above all a sense o f management.
They only survive on begging. Ninety per cent of the inmates go six days a week, except Mondays, for begging return only after a week.
Since, the main drawback of lepers are their deformed physical parts and the loss of energy. They cannot walk for long. Therefore, an energetic partner carries his invalid partner in a small wheeled cart miles in search of a better area and well off persons. Still the most unfortunate are the children of the ‘Kusht’ Colony., Their future is uncertain and hopeless. Nonetheless, Virendra Kujoor. 21, who is a matriculate and totally out of the grip of the disease, teaches some basics to such children. He is paid a token amount of Rs. 200 by the Yogda Samaj Sewa.
Indira Nagar Kusht Colony is the only and the biggest whose responsibility of rehabilitation has been taken by Col. Bakshi. After thrice being displaced since 1960’, ‘Indira Nagar its finally going to be established in concrete by this year. The long and regular struggle of the Colonel is finally on the verge of its destination. The Heavy Engineering Corporation has agreed to donate 20 acres of land to the Nagar and the Ranchi Regional Development Authority has also sanctioned Rs. 10 lakh for the rehabilitation of the lepers. Reveals Col. Bakshi, “Twenty lakh is the estimated cost of the colony which includes all kinds of necessary facilities”. Besides, there is a proposal of projects like, fish farming, piggery, ggatery, poultry, vegetable garden, nursery, seed pockets and manufacturing of wire cut bricks and tillers”. 
All eyes are now on Indira Nagar, which will give shelter to 375 lepers in 157 houses. Says happy Mukhia of the colony, Abdul Hayat, 55, “If there was no Col. Bakshi, we would have been living the same age old traditional bad life of the lepers”.