Dhanbad, August 8: As the world is going through the pandemic, people are losing their jobs because of the widespread disease across the country, including Jharkhand. A philanthropist, Dev Kumar Verma, who is a BCCL executive targets to provide 1,000 with working opportunities in August. This marks as one of the best philanthropic efforts during the pandemic in the state as he has launched an initiative to help youths who have lost their jobs during the lockdown by providing them sustainable self-employment opportunities.
In the lockdown, people have lost their livelihoods and cannot even afford meals for one time. "Rozi Roti Mission" is the kind of support they need so that they could work and earn for themselves.
Dev Kumar Verma, has been awarded with Karmaveer Chakra in Year 2019 for recognizing commitment and relentless courage by walking the path less trodden and initiating a wave of change in society. The Karmaveer Chakra Award is the global civilian honours given by the international confederation of NGO (iCONGO) in partnership with United Nations to the people across the globe for relentless courage. The award is tribute to Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, 11th President of India, who had offered to be the ambassador for the awards and international volunteering Olympiad.
In an interview with CoalNet, Dev Kumar Verma, said, "For people who are educated, we are opening customer service point bank, garage, etc. and fruit shop, chicken shop, vegetable shop, etc. for the ones who are not educated. According to their previous working capabilities they'll be assigned work. We are also educating them to be presentable and how to speak, to make customers come back again. We are offering them Pathshala classes. Our job is to invest and theirs is to convince the customers to come back again to their shop. We are investing our 24*7 to them. Around 100 people are identified who will be benefitted by this mission."
On request to share difficulties he has faced, he said: "The investment part is hard. Purchasing power of ordinary people has been affected badly due to the pandemic. However, we are putting in our best efforts to make this initiative a successful one. We are still not sure about the final outcome but instead of blaming the system we are trying to get through the real issue and try to get people to come forward to ensure they get a livelihood opportunity. There's a chance we can't get the money back that we're investing in. This isn't an easy task at all.”
"The entire investment is of around 20-25 lacs which is sponsored by Pathshala. We are approaching people like Sonu Sood, who has promised to support our initiatives. Eminent Actor Mr. Pankaj Tripathi has also supported our initiatives through his social media channels. But this is not enough to meet the essential requirements so we are trying to contact other donors to support the cause." He added.
Talking about the Pathsala, Dev Kumar Verma said, “He was once attending an election duty in his village Katras, Dhanbad the venue for the election was a government school. On the desk were some leave letters written by nine and ten standard kids. He was shocked to find many spelling mistakes in the leave letters. Further, what shocked him more was the teachers accepting the leave letters without asking the students to correct the errors. In spite of taking up the matter to the CM, no concrete steps were taken by the government to address the issue. The sad situation of education in the school drove him to start Pathshala school.”
"Children who smuggle coal even before they turn five now go to a proper English medium school for free", he quoted.
"Our mission has been appreciated by the chairman of BCCL, Coal Secretary and many other seniors who are the decision makers. I am really thankful to my coal India family." He concluded.
Dev is an alumnus of IIM-Lucknow and NIT-Durgapur, who spends almost his entire salary on the schools' infrastructure. Born to a paan shop owner and coal labourer in Dhanbad district's Katras village, Verma too had to work along with father in mines for hours. He and other children of his age were exposed to filthy conditions, coal dust, silica dust and noxious fumes. Despite the odds, Verma did not give up his studies and performed exceptionally well in the Class X examinations, thanks to the guidance of his teachers.
