BHUBANESWAR: Odisha cadre IPS officer and Central Electricity Supply Utility of Odisha (CESU) CEO Arun Bothra’s Good Samaritan act of helping a Mumbai-based woman, who needed camel milk for her three-and-a-half year-old autistic child, has grabbed headlines.
The Railways was virtually moved to deliver the milk from Rajasthan to Mumbai after the mother, Neha Kumari, tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Twitter requesting help to get camel milk from Sadri in Rajasthan. “I have a 3.5-year-old child suffering from autism and severe food allergies. He survives on camel milk and limited quality of pulses. When lockdown started, I did not have enough camel milk to last this long. Help me get the camel milk or its powder from Sadri,” tweeted Kumari on April 4.
The message was retweeted by many and Bothra, a native of Rajasthan, was alerted about it by one of his followers on the micro-blogging site. The 1996-batch IPS officer shared the woman’s request on various WhatsApp groups in Rajasthan and one group member informed him that Tarun Jain, Chief Passenger Traffic Manager with North-Western Railway looks after the freight operations. Bothra, who knew Jain, requested him to look into the lady’s request.
Jain reportedly asked the railways’ commercial department in Ajmer to get in touch with the vendor to find out a convenient station for him to deliver the stock. Phalna in Pali district was found to be the closest station as Sadri does not feature on the train’s route. Since the train does not halt at Phalna, the railways made a special stoppage to load the parcel of 20-kg camel milk powder along with 20 litre camel milk which were sent to Mumbai.
In the meantime, Bothra arranged 400 gm camel milk powder from a shop in Mumbai and helped to get it across to the woman.
Railways Minister Piyush Goyal tweeted Railway’s rescue act. “Twenty litre camel milk reached Mumbai by train last night. The family has kindly shared part of it with another needy person in the city,” tweeted Bothra.