Mumbai: Central Railway TCs send textbooks to flood-hit Raigad kids, win hearts

CR ticket checkers with the relief material provided to Mahad villagers

School kids and staff in the flood-hit villages of Mahad, Raigad have heaped praise on the Central Railway's ticket checkers for distributing thousands of copies of Maharashtra Secondary Board textbooks for Stds V to X to ensure children's studies are not affected.

"We are thankful to CR Mumbai's ticket checkers for visiting and distributing books to flood-hit villages of Sawad, Bhorav, Akle, Kangule and Matwan, along with pens and stationery. They have generated a lot of goodwill by also felicitating SSC toppers at the school," principal Jyotsna Mehta from Madhyamik Vidyalaya, Sawad, said in a written letter to the ticket checkers' fraternity.

The team has also distributed essentials to affected families in the interior villages located away from the main road.

The TCs with school children in a Mahad village

"We have all been hit and affected in some way or the other and when we heard of these floods, we wanted to do something for the villages. The villages along highways and main roads could get immediate relief from the lorries and trucks that came with help. The real problem was in the interior villages located away from the main roads," said chief ticket inspector DV Chindarkar.

"We made a list of such villages and a detailed list of families living there. We then made 250 kits of ration and other essentials with names on them, booked a lorry and transported them. Schools are already shut and with the floods damaging books, we felt it would be important to distribute textbooks, too, so that education is not affected in any way," said Harishchandra Madhukar Mondkar, chief ticket inspector.

"Textbooks were given to all students between stds V and X at Madhyamik School, Sawad village in Mahad, Shri Chhatrapati Vidyalala in Varandh, with the help of several donors, including Central Railway Mazdoor Sangh, CR sports office, and others," he said.

Each kit contained mats, blankets, rice, dal, wheat, sugar, tea, candles, salt, potatoes, noodles, snacks, milk powder, oil, balm, bleaching powder, match sticks, body and cloth washing soaps, toothpaste, buckets and sanitary napkins.

250
No. of ration kits prepared by Central Railway TCs