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Puttaparthi (Andhra Pradesh), Nov 9 (PTI) Mother Easwaramma’s three wishes to her son, Sathya Sai Baba, led to the creation of mammoth charitable projects in education, healthcare, and social service which continue to serve mankind, despite his absence physically. These very trailblazing projects–free primary to tertiary-care hospitals, free education from primary schooling to doctoral research, free drinking water to remote villages — have made the name of Sai Baba and Puttaparthi, which was once a tiny village, shine throughout the world. Over the last 50 odd years, these projects have transformed into, state-of-the-art and world class institutions in the form of the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning and allied educational institutions, the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences and allied health care institutions and the Sri Sathya Sai Drinking Water Supply Projects. These institutions are gearing up to rededicate themselves in the service of mankind, during the centenary birthday celebrations of Sathya Sai Baba. The Baba’s legacy projects are being carried forward by the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust. “All the works are absolutely going in the way he directed us to take it forward–like education, medical, and social services — everything, as per his direction, we are carrying forward with the support of all the devotees and followers of Baba,” Trust’s managing trustee R J Rathnakar told PTI. Free, quality education and health care, and socially relevant projects have continued, he said adding, “In education, how he made it free for all the students who come in, the same thing we are continuing. In the medical side, anybody who comes into our hospitals gets only free medical treatment–there is no billing counter at all in our hospitals.” Pointing out that a lot of new initiatives are being undertaken, Rathnakar further said, energy drinks for students are being provided in 45,000 schools across the 26 districts of Andhra Pradesh, covering 34 lakh students. “We want to strengthen the legacy of Baba, we would like to see where we can expand. In fact, we are upgrading continuously. We are trying to be trendy and trying to catch up with whatever is happening around,” he added. The recent introduction of robotic heart surgery at free of cost, is said to be part of the upgradation process. Dr Anil Kumar Mulpur, Joint Director and Head of Cardiac Surgery at Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences said, the treatment given in the hospital at Puttaparthi, and the one at Bengaluru’s Whitefield has been doing the service for the last 25 years, and the treatment given is free, without reference to caste, colour, creed, nationality, or religion. He claimed that the hospital at Puttaparthi is the first ever in the world to offer free robotic heart surgery. “We are in the process of fine-tuning the logistics, and we are hoping to do at least one, if not more, robotic heart surgeries a day at free of cost. Currently, we perform about 100 operations in this hospital — I’m just talking about heart surgeries — and about 100 heart surgeries in the Whitefield hospital in a month. Imagine 200 heart surgeries free per month. That is unparalleled,” he added. Regarding the drinking water project undertaken by Baba, aimed at providing water to millions living in arid regions, the trust officials said, in the erstwhile combined Anantapur district, Baba had taken up the water project, and in fact, it’s one of its kind by any charitable organization. It covered almost 1,621 villages, with nearly 2,800 to 3,000 km of pipelines, and it’s running successfully. The project is being maintained by the government, they further said. Sri Sathya Sai Mobile Hospital is another novel outreach programme taking healthcare to the doorsteps of rural people. According to the trust officials, the mobile clinic with its team of doctors works 12 days every month and visits a village every day it works offering diagnostic services, performing minor surgeries and dental procedures. In cases where urgent medical attention is necessary, the patients are referred to local Sri Sathya Sai hospitals for further treatment. Pointing out that after Baba’s Maha Samadhi, a lot of questions were asked regarding, how his legacy and programmes will be carried forward, the managing trustee said, the foundation that was laid by Sai Baba was very firm and absolutely on solid ground. He created systems and a kind of institution which has the wherewithal to carry forward all the missions which he had started in his lifetime, with the support of his followers and devotees. Along with the support of donations, the trust has also diligently built a corpus to fund programmes and service initiatives of Baba that are free, Rathnakar further said. “We have a few thousand crores corpus, which gives interest,” he added. “So every year, from donations, we are diligently proportioning some funds towards the corpus. So our corpus is also increasing. From 2011, after Baba left us, till now, we would have added nearly Rs 800 crore to 1,000 crores corpus, apart from what we spent–almost Rs 1,500 to 1,800 crores on regular works. So it adds,” he said. PTI KSU ADB
