RANCHI: For hotelier Ranjeet Rajpal and his childhood friends, Covid is not a time to remain inside the safe confines of their homes. They are helping patients in refilling oxygen cylinders for free, besides providing free meals to them.
The group has purchased over a dozen cylinders for those who cannot afford to buy one. They lend the cylinders without taking any cost or security deposit from the beneficiaries.
So what spurred them to start their voluntary service? It was after Rajpal, Piyush More, Surya Prabhat and Prince Kohli, in their forties, received a distress call from one of their friends, Abhishek, whose father was facing problems in breathing due to COVID-19.
“Abhishek asked us to arrange oxygen cylinder for his father. We arranged one immediately and gradually his father recovered. Next day, another person called us seeking help for his ailing family member,” said Rajpal.
“Our phone numbers were circulated among the people. When people started calling us for help, we could not refuse them.” The group has bought 12 cylinders on its own.
“After recovering from the virus, the patients return cylinders and we pass it to some other person.”
When it comes to food, the quartet is providing free food packets to more than 500 people in the last 20 days.