Times of India: Pune: Tuesday, 15 July 2014.
Former
President Pratibha Patil felicitated the recipients of the Pune Heroes Award at
a special event organized at the historic Raja Dinkar Kelkar museum recently.
Loud cheers
from the audience greeted all four recipients of the award. The crowd reserved
its biggest applause for Teertharaja Bhatia, who has been volunteering as a
traffic warden on the city's streets for the past 22 years. "I don't
volunteer for money. I do it because I feel I can help prevent accidents as
people often drive carelessly these days," Bhatia said.
The three
other recipients of the award include Ram Bangad, who set up a charitable trust
for blood donation, Kailas Mali, an autorickshaw driver who ferries people with
disabilities, pregnant women and elderly women free of cost, and RTI activist
Vijay Kumbhar. Mali's recollections of what inspired him to ferry needy people
in his autorickshaw and Kumbhar's account of taking on the system using the RTI
Act kept the audience engrossed.
Speaking of
his plans for the future, Bangad said, "I am working towards establishing
a system through which everybody in Maharashtra can receive blood free of
cost."
Patil
appreciated the efforts of all the four. "We need more people like them in
our society. They may not be wealthy, but they have a rich mind. They are not
heroes, they are jewels," she said.
Speaking
about Kumbhar's work, Patil said it is not easy to question the system, but he
has proved that RTI activism can make a difference.
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