Colonel Vembu Shankar retired from his 20 years of service to run his campaign ‘Project Sambandh’, where he works to establish a connection between the families of the martyrs and the government. Many families continue to live in poverty as they are not aware about the government schemes that are there specifically for them. Colonel Shankar wishes to spread an awareness regarding the same.
Kolkata: Shaurya Chakra awardee Vembu Shankar is a retired Colonel. He had dreamed of becoming an army officer since his childhood. He accomplished his goals, but he took voluntary retirement after 20 years of service as he wanted to help the families of his martyred friends.
Receiving Shaurya Chakra
Vembu Shankar was born in Kolkata on 3 December 1975. He spent his early years in Madras. He completed his schooling from PS Senior Secondary School. After that he joined National Defence Academy and the Indian Military Academy.
He was commissioned in the Indian Army in the year 1997. In 1998, he was deployed in the Dogra scouts, in Kupwara, Jammu and Kashmir. He resisted the extremists and prevented them from igniting a tension among the public. The same year, he received the Shaurya Chakra for his bravery. Vembu Shankar was also a part of the Kargil war in 1999.
Voluntary retirement
Colonel Vembu Shankar served in the army for 20 years before taking retirement. According to him, the families of the martyred soldiers are deprived of the facilities and privileges one enjoys during their service. He understood the hardships of these families and decided to serve them after taking his VRS.
Starting a campaign
Vembu Shankar’s campaign is called ‘Project Sambandh’. He had started this campaign in 2017, way before he took VRS. He vowed to visit one thousand families of martyrs to aid them financially. It was an exhausting and laborious task to find details about these families.
He needed to trace them and verify them to assess their financial condition. After his research, Vembu Shankar found 27,000 such families. This number was 27 times more than he had vowed to provide his services to.
Vembu Shankar’s primary aim was to bring an awareness about the challenges these families face. He wished to establish a connection between them and the Directorate of Indian Services to provide them with educational facilities and social schemes.
Making people aware
Colonel Shankar shared a post on Facebook; he had gone to visit the family of martyr, K Pomundi. He interacted with the martyr’s brother and was surprised to hear that the family did not want any sort of help from the government. He learned about their story and found out that the soldier’s widow and son had struggled financially after his passing away. They were not aware about the educational scholarships that their son could benefit from. He educated the wife about these schemes and applied for them himself.
Schemes for the families of soldiers
The children of the soldiers can avail a scholarship of Rs 10,000 from class 1 to 8 and Rs 14,000 from class 9 to 12. A monetary help of Rs 20,000 is provided for a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree. A sum of Rs 50,000 can be availed for a professional course.
The widows are provided with a sum of Rs 1 lakh for remarriage. Not many get these benefits due to lack of awareness. Colonel Vembu Shankar works with an objective of making people aware about their rights.
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