'Blood brother’ of Vidisha creates donor directory of 85k people

BHOPAL: Class nine dropout and once an owner of a paan shop, Vikas Pachori (43) has knit together 85,000 people in Vidisha district by one thread - blood. He has single-handedly created a donor directory that covers the district, and it is proving to be a life-saver.
Vidisha, the high-profile Lok Sabha constituency of external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, is just 50 from the state capital.“I have compiled the directory covering 240 villages from across Vidisha district,” said Pachori, adding that he has been on the job for the last two years. In his data bank of 85,000 people, he has a pool of 1,200 AB negative donors, who, he says are available whenever there is a shortage of blood. “Thanks to my data bank, I can, and am ready, to help people from anywhere in the country should they need blood,” he said.
Ranu Dubey, a resident of Raghavji Colony in Vidisha, needed blood for his brother Vivek. He contacted Vikas and managed to get a donor within minutes, from the neighbouring Rajput colony. “Thanks to Vikas, I got blood for my brother who was suffering from malaria,” recalled Ranu.
Rekha Thakur, a resident of Krishna Colony, had met with an accident in Vidisha a few months back. She was referred to a hospital in Bhopal and needed several units of blood. Fifteen donors from Vidisha came forward. Her brother Shivendra Dangi told TOI: “My sister met with an accident in March and she needed 70 units of blood. Had it not been for the directory, I would not have been able to make effort to save my sister.”
In that 85,000-strong list is Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi, who was born in Vidisha. “Satyarthi too donated blood on December 2014 and had contributed to my mission,” Vikas said.
After shutting down his paan shop, Pachori went on to start a photo studio in Vidisha. “I put up some no-parking flex boards in Vidisha with details of my photo studio around three years back,” said Vikas, adding that on all the flex boards that he placed in public places or houses, he wrote the message ‘rakt daan maha daan.’ That one-liner became popular among the people and they got in touch with Vikas not for getting their photos clicked, but for blood.
“It was then that I decided to take up the challenge of creating a group in which the members would come forward to help each other when there’s a need of blood,” Vikas told TOI, adding, “On an average five people in need of blood contact me daily. All I do is to provide them name and contact details of the nearest available persons with the relevant blood group.” All his donors are above 18 years of age.
“After collecting blood group data of one lakh people, I will go to New Delhi to urge Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make mentioning blood group mandatory in all documents. I will also apply for the Guinness Book of World Records,” he said.

Pachori, however, does not maintain a list of people who got blood through him as he says it would be an endless exercise. However, people in Vidisha and adjoining villages know he is the go-to man if there’s a need for blood.
Vikas calls himself a “lone warrior” and claims that he is not attached to any NGO or an organisation. “I have started it on my own, and I do not need any help. My commitment is enough to get one lakh donors by the end of the year,” he asserts.
Manish Sharma is one of the donors registered with Vikas. “It feels great to be associated with Vikas. He motivates us to donate blood,” he said.