Journalism of Courage
IT professionals initiative gets good response from friends,colleagues; part of money used to donate fodder
IT professional Nilesh Lales initiative of collecting money to donate fodder in drought-ridden villages has received tremendous response. In just about a week,his friends and colleagues donated over Rs 1 lakh. Part of the amount has been used to donate dry and green fodder to cattle owned by 120 needy farmers from three village Waghmodewadi,Gattewadi and Gondawale Budruk in Phaltan taluka of Satara.
Lale,his colleagues and friends Mahendra Ranpise,Sameer Wagh,Mahesh Kulkanri and Amar Sutar left Pune for the villages at 6.15 am on Sunday. They ordered a truck-load of dry fodder from Solapur and another truck with four tonnes of green fodder to Phaltan. At Phaltan,they bought 400 more bundles and headed to Gondawale Budruk,where they reached by 10.30 am.
When Lale had gone to the villages earlier to review the drought situation,he had asked a few villagers to shortlist the names of needy farmers. We reviewed each of the 60 names at Waghmodewadi and handed over 10 bundles of dry fodder to them,which would last them a week, said Lale.
The team then moved to Gattewadi,where the gram sevak was ready with 30 names of needy farmers. Of these,20 were present and were given 15 bundles of dry and green fodder each. The last village was Gondawale Budruk,where landless labourers and farmers owning small pieces of land stay. A list of 40 farmers was handed to us. These farmers also own some cattle. They were given 20 bundles of green fodder and three-four bundles of dry fodder. Most of the green fodder bundles were distributed here as they did not want the dry variety for their cattle, Lale said.
On the way back,the group decided to utilise the balance to buy only green fodder,which is most scarce in drought-ridden villages. The villages where fodder will be donated will be decided by Lale in a few days. He will set out on yet another journey next Sunday.
Lale,who works with Allscripts in Pune,had decided to donate fodder to villagers after his weekend visit to Maan one of the worst-affected areas in Pune where the villagers had told him that they could manage with the little water available,but their prime requirement was fodder to save their cattle from being sold to the butcher.
Those interested in contacting Lale may mail him on nileshnature@gmail.com
