Anil Kumar Saroj is a social worker and Community Correspondent who reports on issues related to employment, corruption, caste, and women’s rights. A spirit of entrepreneurship and a commitment to justice and equality are deeply embedded within Anil. His lower caste status caused him and his family to experience discrimination and unemployment. The hostility drove his family to move to…

Anil Kumar Saroj

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Bhadohi District of Uttar Pradesh did not have a District Hospital for a long time. All the patients had to go to Lucknow or Varanasi for their treatments. Infact, the State Government had started constructing one 100 bedded hospital in 2008. 80% of the construction was done but unfortunately after 6 years, in 2014, the construction was stopped. In these 6 years of construction, the Government had spent around 18 crore Indian Rupees (about 2250000 USD). 

The victims were the people of the nearby areas, who, for any ailments, had to travel a considerable distance for health care. The population of Bhadohi district is around 20 lakh (2 million).

Since then, from 2014, many social activists of the area have been voicing their concern about this problem of lack of Health Services in the district. With VV’s campaign Swasth Aaspatal the active citizens got the much needed support to mobilise locals to put more pressure on local administration for making the Hospital operational. One action committee composed of Advocates, Journalists and Citizens is made to work further on this demand. They wrote numerous applications to district and state health officials, met the local politicians, Members of Legislative Assemblies and various other influential people to stress on this issue. They also launched a Social Media campaign, did press conferences, submitted memorandums, basically to make people aware of the demand for a District Hospital. 

All these efforts did not go in vain, you can see from the video that now the Hospital is operational with Outpatient Departments, Ambulance services, Ultrasound and X-Ray facilities. The whole hospital is painted new and a Main Gate with a board is installed. 

People of Bhadohi are a happy bunch now, as the health facility in their neighbourhood is going to surely reduce the trauma of the patients. Please share this video to celebrate this victory of the active citizens.