An elderly, physically challenged man in Kerala who rolls beedis for a living has donated his life’s savings so that others in his state can get vaccinated against Covid for free.
Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who referred to the extraordinary act of altruism on Saturday, said the man had donated Rs 2 lakh from his savings bank account that had Rs 200,850.
He refrained from identifying the donor to honour the beedi worker’s wish to remain anonymous.
A crowd-funding effort launched on Wednesday afternoon to help the state government provide free vaccines to under-45 adults has generated several moving stories of charity from people who themselves are in most need of help.
Vijayan said: “The man goes to a bank with a request to transfer Rs 2 lakh to the chief minister’s disaster relief fund (CMDRF).... The bank officials naturally had some doubts since it amounted to almost all his savings.”
“So the bank officials asked him what he would do if he needed money in future. He replied that he had the job of a beedi roller and received the state pension for the physically challenged. He told the bank officials his savings were not more important than the lives of his brethren.”
By 10pm, the CMDRF had received Rs 1.77 crore on Saturday alone as part of the crowd-funding effort, #vaccinechallenge, taking the total collection in three days well above Rs 3 crore.
Vijayan did not reveal the place from where the donor had sent the money, but a clue came from a Facebook post by a bank official who had interacted with the man.
Soundar Raj CP, who works at a cooperative bank in Kannur district, said an aged man had walked into the bank on Friday, handed over his passbook to check the balance in his account, and then mentioned the sum he wanted to donate.
“I realised the frail-looking man had no other resources. So I suggested he could send Rs 1 lakh and keep the remaining amount in the bank account,” Raj wrote in the post that has been widely circulated since Saturday afternoon.
The unnamed donor then responded that he “had no problems now since he was receiving the pension for the physically challenged and earned Rs 1,000 each week by rolling beedis”.
Raj quoted the man as saying: “I shall be able to sleep only after I send this money today. Please don’t reveal my name to anyone.”
Vijayan had on Friday lauded a poor woman named Subaida who runs a tea shop in Kollam and donated to the CMDRF a sum of Rs 5,000 that she had earned by selling one of her goats. She had walked into the Kollam district collector’s office to hand over the money.
In April last year, too, Subaida had donated Rs 5,510 to the CMDRF to help the state combat the first wave of the Covid outbreak.
A group of unknown people had started the crowd-funding effort via Twitter in protest against the Centre’s policy of not funding vaccination for the 18-45 age group.
