Moolchand Lodha, fondly known as ‘Bhaisahab’ in tribal-dominated villages of Dungarpur, Rajasthan was selected for Padma Shri awards 2023 for providing free eye care to tribals for the past 20 years.
He has been living with the tribals for the past 40 years fighting against various social issues like child marriage, land rights and education among the tribals.
Social Work
He opened a learning centre with five children in one of the villages in the mid-Nineties and started teaching them as the dropout rate was very high in the region.
Thereafter, he realised that villagers were facing severe eye problems and hospitals nearby did not have facilities.
He started focusing on eye care work by organising eye camps in the villages. For some years, the eye camps were successful to a limited extent as villagers had to go to hospitals in towns and cities for free operations.
He also set up a two-storey eye hospital for the locals with the help of donations from other areas.
His team held eye camps with the help of sarpanch and gram panchayat in a cluster of villages. The patients are identified and given dates. A vehicle is sent to pick them up and drop them off in an ambulance.
Over the years, doctors from various states have started offering voluntary services monthly while other donors have donated latest equipment.
In the last 15 years, they have examined 1.60 lakh people and operated over 18,000 people, most of them tribals hailing from poor families.
