Over the last few months, India has been gasping for oxygen. Amidst the grim reality of hundreds and thousands of patients dying, the youth of our country have come forward to help in their own ways.
A group of students at Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) have collaborated with a non-governmental organisation, Doctors For You, to set up an oxygen plant at the Commonwealth Games Village, which has been converted into a 500-bed free-of-cost Covid-care facility. To that end, they have started an online campaign to raise Rs 35 lakh, out of which they have been able to collect around Rs 14 lakh so far. The plant, according to Shruti Gaggar – an SRCC student who is part of the initiative – can produce 150 litres of oxygen per minute, sufficient enough to save around 20 to 30 lives at a time.
“Initially, while working as Covid-relief workers, we realised that the situation is much grave and we, as students of SRCC, wanted to do something. This is when we pitched the idea of helping ‘Doctors For You’ with the construction of an oxygen plant to our college authorities and luckily, we received a very positive response from them,” said Gaggar.
Also Read: Second Wave: The Youth Of India Is Stepping Up
With the campaign, they aim to make lives easy of those in need during these tough times. “While working as Covid relief workers, we realised that people of our country are more than willing to help, in whatever way possible and nothing can be better than donating towards a good cause which will not only help us cope with the COVID-19 virus but will also be beneficial to us in the long run,” said Gaggar.
On April 17, 2021, they started this fundraiser and so far they have received an overwhelming response from the public. They not only received support from various media houses, private companies, college authorities, individual donors but also from the ministry of education when recently Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal, minister of education, mentioned them in one of his tweets.
“Students of Shri Ram College of Commerce, @UnivofDelhi have launched an online campaign to raise money to set up an #oxygen plant to help #COVID-19 patients. All the best!”
Students of Shri Ram College of Commerce, @UnivofDelhi have launched an online campaign to raise money to set up an #oxygen plant to help #COVID-19 patients.
All the best!https://t.co/SyTM3pQioi pic.twitter.com/8EjDnbkK0K
— Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank (@DrRPNishank) May 23, 2021
Click here to make your donation.
All images provided by Shruti Gaggar.