PM’s aid insufficient for boy’s surgery

VARANASI: Financial assistance from prime minister Narendra Modi is proving insufficient for a five-year-old hearing impaired boy to undergo a surgery for cochlear implant. The PM has granted Rs 3 lakh, while the surgery costs Rs 6.5 lakh.
The boy’s father, a motorcycle mechanic, is grateful to PM’s generosity, but he is hopeless to arrange the remaining money needed for his son’s surgery.
Vishnu Soni, a resident of Churamanpur, had applied for financial assistance for the treatment of his sons, 5-year-old Amreshwar, who deaf and dumb by birth and 12-year-old Dhaneshwar, who sufferers from thalassemia. “I received a letter in February that Rs 3 lakh has been remitted to the hospital for the treatment of Amreshwar from Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund,” Soni, who runs a small shop of motorcycle repairing near his village, said.
“I am thankful to the PM for providing financial help but what is worrying me is the arrangement of remaining sum as I hardly earn Rs 1,500-2,000 to feed my five children,” he said. The total estimate of surgery given by Sir Sundarlal Hospital is Rs 6.5 lakh.
“It is beyond my capacity to arrange the money,” Soni, whose wife deserted him three years back, said. He alone looks after his four sons and a daughter. “My oldest son also suffers from thalassemia and he needs regular blood transfusion. I am under heavy debt burden,” he added.
“When contacted to the PM’s local office I was told that there are many others who need help,” he said.
Office-in-charge of Modi’s parliamentary office in Ravindrapuri Colony Shiv Sharan Pathak said that in last one year Rs 80 lakhs have been granted by the PM to 64 persons of his constituency, who needed treatment for different ailments.