At a time when others of his age prefer to take life easy, Rameshwar Prasad, an octogenarian and a retired mechanical engineer of ACC Sindri, is busy helping people in remote Tundi block of Dhanbad by establishing a computer training centre cum library with the help of funds provided by the Indian technocrats settled abroad.
Prasad, who visited the computer training centre cum library yesterday at Saparo in Tundi along with his family members said, “We interacted with the trainees as well as with trainers at the centre, established around a year ago in memory of my father Keshawa Prasad, and witnessed significant and visible improvement among the village students, women and youth after receiving training at the centre.”
Prasad also informed that apart from the centre at Saparo equipped with three desktops, one laptop, and three sewing machines, they are also running two more centres at Mairanwatand and Kolhahir village in Tundi where they have been imparting computer training and stitching training for the last 18 months.
“We have established all the three centers at the vacant buildings of Ekal Vidyalaya, Single Teacher schools established by Vanvasi Kalayan Kendra which were lying unused since a few years ago due to establishment of government schools in such village under the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan scheme,” said Prasad and added that several books of general use have been stocked in all the centers for the benefit of the trainees that include the local students as well as youth and women.
“We have constituted a committee of the local residents for running all the three centers and the trainers also include local residents who have some skill computer operation as well some women who are either skilled or semi skilled in stitching, sewing embroidery etc," said Prasad who is also the vice president of Vanvasi Kalyan Kendra, Dhanbad. He added that they will be imparting further training to the trainers at par with professional trainers.
“The funds for all the three computer training cum library centres have been provided by Indian technocrats settled abroad and primarily in US who are already providing financial support to meritorious students of engineering, technical and medical colleges through Foundation of Excellence (FFE) an NGO of NRIs in US having its office at Bangalore," said Prasad who himself funds scholarship to meritorious girl students of plus two under the banner of Prakash Foundation.
Encouraged by the success of three existing centres, Prasad is now planning to start a new center at Bartand village of Tundi for which all preparations have been completed. According to Prasad, social service helps him to keep busy at this age and also provides satisfaction of giving back to society.
