Team News Riveting
Raipur, November 18
South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) supports, from fulfilling the country’s dry-fuel demand to aiding a child to get advance medical care to combat a deadly disease.
In an unstinting initiative, the country’s largest coal producing company has come out to help Srishti Rani, a two-year-old child suffering from a rare disease called “Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA).” Coal India Limited (CIL), the holding company of the SECL, has responded with the same generosity and approved the proposal to bear the cost of the drug that can save a child’s life.
Srishti, suffering from SMA Type-2, needs to be jabbed with an injection named Zolgensma, which costs Rs 16 crore and has to be imported from the United States (US). The kid is presently put on a portable ventilator at her residence at Dipka coal area of SECL in Chhattisgarh after getting last treatment from AIIMS, Delhi.
“It was not possible for an employee like Satish to buy an injection at such a high price. Now, CIL management has taken a welcome decision to bear the cost of injection, which has to be imported. With this generous gesture, CIL has also set an exemplary example for other PSUs and Organizations thinking human resources along with their families are their real wealth and saving their lives at any cost is the first and foremost job,” a senior SECL official said.
Srishti was born on November 22, 2019. Within six months after her birth, she started falling sick. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, her parents could not move outside for better treatment and she could only get local medical care till the time they moved to Christian Medical College (CMC) Vellore in December, 2020, where she was diagnosed with SMA. On December 30, 2020, while returning from Vellore, her health deteriorated and was admitted at SECL empanelled Apollo Hospital in Bilaspur. Later, she was referred to AIIMS.
Today the country and society are running campaigns like “Save the girl child” for the girl child. The SECL and Coal India family have translated it into action.
Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi is wholeheartedly supporting the initiatives taken to combat SMA. In February, the Prime Minister waived off Rs 6 crore as a GST amount against Rs 16 crore of imported medicines required to treat a six-month-old baby girl in Mumbai suffering from SMA on the request of her parents.
The efforts of Coal India add significance at a time when its coal miners are toiling day and night in the service to the Nation, feeding the thermal power plants with dry-fuel for ensuring uninterrupted supply in the country.
