A gift to PGI in lost son’s memory

Out of gratitude,Shakuntala and her son Sushil Gupta have decided to gift a ventilator worth Rs 10 lakh to the PGI.

She said that by giving the ventilator,she was fulfilling the wishes of her late husband. “My husband was highly thankful to the Almighty that I had been able to regain the use of my limbs. He had said that in return,he wanted to do something for the poor patients there,” said Shakuntala.

The woman,who has been in the care of Prof Sudesh Prabhakar,the head of the Neurology department,asked him what the family could do in the service of the poor patients.

Talking to Newsline,Prof Prabhakar said it was a very noble decision on the part of the family to finance a ventilator for the department. “We have initiated the process for purchasing the ventilator,and will acquire it in two-three months,” he said.

The ventilator is being gifted to PGI through the Rakesh Kumar Gupta Memorial Charitable Trust. Rakesh was Sushil’s younger brother,who died in 1997 at the age of 31. “My brother was a highly educated and a successful entrepreneur. In his memory,my parents set up a trust and deposited Rs 60 lakh in it The capital has now grown to Rs 75 lakh,and the interest on it is spent on philanthropic activities,” he said.

The family had earlier gifted an ambulance to the PGI apart from donating geysers and hot blowers to the old age home in Panchkula. At the Government High School in Sector 17,Panchkula,the family gifted books and notebooks to children. It regularly donates money to the school for deaf and dumb children run by the Lions’ Club. The trust also financed the Udaan project of the Bharat Prakarsh Foundation to provide libraries in 35 Alternative Innovative Education (AIE) centres of the UT Administration as part of the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyaan. It also regularly donates money at orphanages and engages in other philanthropic activities.

Shakuntala said while the family donates for the social welfare activities,her dream is to set up a hospital or a school in the name of her late son. “I want to make a big investment through the trust. We had tried to get land for this purpose but the plan could not materialise. I pray to God to help me realise my dream,” she said.