Governance
Project Sambandh:
Aim:
- To connect the Next of Kin (NoK) of ‘physical casualties’ in the Army.
- To bring awareness about the challenges the NoK faced and assist them in connecting them to the Directorate of Indian Army Veterans, which provided several educational and social schemes to children and the widows of slain army personnel.
About the project:
- It is a one-man philanthropic initiative by Retired army officer and Shaurya Chakra awardee Colonel Vembu Shankar.
- Initially started as a 1,000-day endeavour to reach out to families of army officers who lost their lives under ‘non-operational circumstances’ such as physical ailments, accidents, and suicides.
- If there are about 100 army personnel killed in the battlefield every year, over a thousand die due to non-operational reasons and for these families entitlements, grants and schemes are vastly different from those of the battle casualties.
- Project Sambandh has identified that the NoKs, particularly young widows and children of the army personnel, face three kinds of challenges – financial, emotional, and social.
- Over the last five years, he mapped over 15,000 NoKs and connected them to authorities.
- This had helped in delivery of more than ₹1 crore financial assistance. Moreover, many families had also been put in touch with the units and regiments their husband, son, or father had served.
Source: The hindu
