In a re­mark­able act of phil­an­thropy and com­mit­ment to the com­mu­nity, Sikh lead­ers from Mum­bai un­der the man­age­ment of the Mum­bai Sikhs apex body -Sri Guru Singh Sabha Mum­bai, Dadar, trav­elled to the flood-af­fected re­gions of Pun­jab to pro­vide mon­e­tary aid to the tune of Rs. 35 lakhs to small and mar­ginal farm­ers. The ini­tia­tive aimed to help farm­ers re­cover from the dev­as­tat­ing floods that sub­merged fields and de­stroyed crops two months ago. WSN re­ports.

Sri Guru Singh Sabha (Regd) Mum­bai Dadar, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with all the Gur­d­waras of Mum­bai, MM Re­gion, San­gat of Mum­bai, Se­wak Jathas, and Istri Sat­sang Sabha, dis­trib­uted cheques to 320 fam­i­lies from the vil­lages of Dheera Ghara, Tal­liglam, and Basti Rat­toke of Fer­ozepur dis­trict in the Pun­jab. Each fam­ily re­ceived Ru­pees 7,500, and an ad­di­tional do­na­tion of Rs. 11,000 was given to one tem­ple and four gu­rud­waras in the re­gion.

Kul­want Singh, who had vis­ited these vil­lages three months ago, re­marked, “The dam­ages were heart-wrench­ing. Houses were sub­merged in 5-foot wa­ter, fields were de­stroyed, and there was a mas­sive loss of live­stock and prop­erty. Their en­tire crop was de­stroyed and they needed sup­port for the next round of cul­ti­va­tion. We had to stand with our brethren dur­ing these test­ing times.”

On his ini­tial visit, im­me­di­ate med­ical aid worth nearly Ru­pees 2 lakhs was dis­patched to pre­vent dis­eases due to stag­nant wa­ter. The to­tal dis­burse­ment to the farm­ers was in the re­gion of Ru­pees 30 lakhs and Rs. 5 lakhs for the same pur­pose was given to Khalsa Aid.

Ini­tially, it was de­cided that funds would be made avail­able for seeds and fer­til­iz­ers but as there was no clar­ity be­cause of the ground sit­u­a­tion, it was col­lec­tively de­cided to con­tribute funds so that each in­di­vid­ual fam­ily can make their own de­ci­sion af­ter as­sess­ment of their re­spec­tive needs.

Ad­vo­cate Jaswinder Singh of Akal Pu­rakh Ki Fauj, who played a piv­otal role in co­or­di­na­tion, said, “It’s not just about pro­vid­ing funds. It’s about en­sur­ing the well-be­ing of every fam­ily af­fected. We en­sured that we had a list of all the homes in the vil­lages and dou­ble-checked it so that no one was left out.”

In car­ry­ing on this no­ble act, the em­pha­sis was on the long-term re­cov­ery of these farm­ers. The im­por­tance of this was echoed by many, in­clud­ing Gi­ani Ke­wal Singh, for­mer Jathedar of Takht Sri Damdama Sahib and co­or­di­na­tor of Pan­thak Talmel San­gathan, who was pre­sent dur­ing the dis­tri­b­u­tion and who led the prayers for re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of the af­fected fam­i­lies.

Mem­bers of the Singh Sabha Mum­bai, in­clud­ing Sukhvin­der Singh Rand­hawa, Gurvin­der Singh Gill, and Sukhvin­der Singh Chawla, were in­stru­men­tal in han­dling all the ground­work for the is­suance of cheques and en­sur­ing that the work was done with­out du­pli­ca­tion and dis­crim­i­na­tion.

Speak­ing to this re­porter, Se­nior Vice-Pres­i­dent of Sri Guru Singh Sabha Dadar Mum­bai. Kul­want Singh, who camped in the re­gion for three days, humbly stated, “When calamity strikes, it’s our duty to come for­ward, not as in­di­vid­u­als but as a col­lec­tive com­mu­nity. It is our pri­mary duty to af­fect the peo­ple of Pun­jab.”

The ben­e­fi­cia­ries were grate­ful to the team from Mum­bai who had con­tributed funds that would help them in the cul­ti­va­tion of wheat in the com­ing days. They rued the fact that the amount of re­lief an­nounced by the gov­ern­ment of Pun­jab has not reached the flood vic­tims.

The ded­i­ca­tion and com­mit­ment of the Sikh lead­ers from Mum­bai un­der­score the unity and strength of the Sikh com­mu­nity, en­sur­ing that even in the face of ad­ver­sity, no one is left be­hind.