Monasteries run by foreign countries at Bodh Gaya in Bihar and some foreign charity organisations are helping the residents of the heritage city and the nearby villages during the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown in the state, said several people aware of the developments. Bodh Gaya has Buddhist monasteries run by over four dozen countries.
While most of them are distributing cooked food and food grains among the poor, some Vietnamese nationals have sent oxygen concentrators to help Covid-19 patients in the region battle the shortage of the life-saving gas.
Suresh Kumar, the Bodh Gaya Hotel Association president, said one Nghiem Thanh Thuy, a leader of 9 Huong Charity Group in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, has sent five oxygen concentrators for hospitals in Bodh Gaya.
“Today it was handed over to Jivak Hospital, a local private hospital at Bodh Gaya to save lives of serious Covid patients. Nghiem was… worried about the people at Bodh Gaya and the villages around it and so asked volunteers and businessmen to donate funds to help people here. And today we have got five oxygen concentrators,” Kumar said. He added that it was great to see that foreign visitors to Bodh Gaya are ready to serve people with humanitarian work.
Dinu Kumar, a tourist guide at Bodh Gaya who is now working with the Thien Tam Charity group from Vietnam, said the group helped people in over 50 villages around Bodh Gaya in the last few weeks during the lockdown.
“People have been dying not only because of the disease, but hunger is also a big problem. There’s no work and no earnings. I am a tourist guide who has been jobless due to Covid for the last several weeks. It’s this charity work which has helped me and my family survive,” Dinu Kumar said.
Kumar claims the group has already provided over 50 oxygen cylinders to the Covid patients in this area.
Rakesh Kumar, the president of Bodh Gaya tourist guide association, said many including the Thai and Bhutan monasteries were doing charity works these days. “Besides, some organisations which are supported by the people from countries like Australia, the US, the UK, Germany and France are also helping people out during Covid,” Kumar said.
Bihar reported 89 more Covid-19 deaths on Sunday, though its active caseload and the number of fresh cases reported daily continued to decline along with a drop in the positivity ratio. According to the health department, the death toll has now reached 3,832, an increase of more than 1,000 since the beginning of this month when the state went under a lockdown on May 5 to contain the raging second wave of the pandemic. The lockdown has been extended till May 25. The total number of cases Covid cases in the state stands at 6.51 lakh.
