Dedicated to selfless work

Social workers have convinced lakhs of students not to burst crackers

There are few who step out of their cocoon and selflessly dedicate their lives to the service of society. For the past couple of decades, Dr Narendra Dabholkar and Milind Deshmukh have been expending their energy for the welfare of the state.

Dr Dabholkar and Deshmukh convinced at least seven lakh students from the state to celebrate green Diwali by avoiding crackers. President of Maharashtra Andhashradha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS), Dr Dabholkar is struggling to eradicate superstition by powering and implementing scientific and rational thoughts for the past 27 years.
He is the founder and chairman of Vivek Vahini, an organisation of students and teachers interested in working for society. Dr Dabholkar is also running a de-addiction institute named Parivartan.

Both Deshmukh and Dr Dabholkar wanted to make Diwali eco-friendly this year.

"Seven lakh students from the state participated in our campaign," said Deshmukh.

Dabholkar added, "We were asking them to minimise the use of crackers. They promptly asked us that if the use of crackers was hazardous to health and environment then why not put a full-stop to it?"

The duo was successful in saving nearly Rs 150 crore in the state, which would have been spent on bursting of crackers. In the city specifically, they saved Rs 1.25 crore.

"Until last year, Rs 5,000 crore was spent on crackers. We still have a long way to go, said Dr Dabholkar, author of 12 books and editor of Sadhna weekly publication.

Deshmukh, who lives in Dehru Road, approached 40 schools targeting students from standard VI onwards to junior colleges, in his area and received good response from at least 45,000 students.

"We distributed, pamphlets, on which students and their parents signed and vowed to help us in making Diwali safe and pollution-free," he added.