Month-long 'Jaipur foot' artificial limb camp begins in Sri Lanka

A month-long Jaipur foot artificial limb camp was held in western Sri Lanka on Wednesday, with assistance from the Indian government and NGO Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti BMVSS.This Camp will service a cross-section of people from the Sri Lankan society, spread across different regions of the country over a period of more than 1 month, the Indian High Commission here said.

A month-long 'Jaipur foot' artificial limb camp was held in western Sri Lanka on Wednesday, with assistance from the Indian government and NGO Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti (BMVSS).

''This Camp will service a cross-section of people from the Sri Lankan society, spread across different regions of the country over a period of more than 1 month,'' the Indian High Commission here said. The limb fitment camp was inaugurated as part of the week-long celebrations to mark 'Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav' - 75 years of India's Independence - which commenced with the 73rd Republic Day celebrations on January 26, 2022. The celebrations will also include exhibition on Buddhist Heritage in India, unveiling the bust of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore in Sri Palee Campus, University of Colombo, among others.

''The Artificial Limb Fitment Camp exemplifies Government of India's guiding philosophy in developmental partnership with Sri Lanka - of making a palpable impact to the lives of the people of Sri Lanka in accordance with the priorities of the Government of Sri Lanka,'' the high commission said. The BMVSS is a Rajasthani NGO founded in 1975 and is called the world's largest organisation for the differently-abled persons in terms of fitment of artificial limbs and other related aids. The BMVSS has previously organised two camps in Sri Lanka - one in Vavuniya (city in Northern Province) in March-April 2010 and the other in Jaffna (city in northern tip of country) in September 2011. More than 2,500 people had benefitted from these camps, with more than 1,600 just getting the 'Jaipur Foot'. The Jaipur foot, also known as the Jaipur leg, is a rubber-based prosthetic leg for people with below-knee amputations. It was developed by Pandit Ram Chandra Sharma and orthopedic surgeon P K Sethi in 1968.

The BMVSS fitted 31,753 prosthetics in India and 5,783 artificial limbs abroad in 2019-20 compared to the International Council of Red Cross figure, which fitted 4,839 limb equipment in the same period worldwide under the Special Fund for the Disabled (SFD) programme, according to a statement by the NGO.

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