Noted orthopaedic surgeon Dr Bhupendra Kumar Singh Sanjay and Prem Chand Sharma were conferred the Padma Shri award for distinguished service the field of medicine and agriculture respectively. Chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat and others have congratulated the two for the prestigious recognition.
A prominent orthopaedic and spine surgeon based in Dehradun, Dr Sanjay regularly gives his services through free camps for disabled patients. Having seen various aspects of road traffic accidents in his 40 years of professional experience, he also undertakes efforts to raise public awareness about the impact of road traffic accidents in India. Along with his team, he has organised 225 free health camps which earned him an entry in India book of records in 2017. He had also removed the largest bone tumor of the femur weighing 16.5 kg from a 35-year-old patient- a feat which had featured in the Guinness Book of World Records in 2005. He also entered the Limca Book of Records in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2009 for different innovative and successful surgical achievements, like hip replacement surgery in a 98 year old high-risk patient, re-implantation of autoclaved tumor bone to save the limb and life of a teenager girl suffering from bone cancer, for removing the largest bone tumor and for doing a successful spine operation in an 88 year old man.
The other Padma Shri recipient from Uttarakhand, Prem Chand Sharma is a progressive farmer and horticulturist based in the Chakrata area of Dehradun district. Born in a farming family, he was involved in agriculture since a young age. However, due to comparatively less profit in traditional agriculture systems, he decided to experiment in farming starting with the organic cultivation of pomegranates in 1994. After his initiative succeeded, he motivated others in the region to do the same. He then prepared a nursery of 1.5 lakh saplings of high yielding pomegranates in 2000 and distributed these to farmers in the region. Later in 2013, he formed the fruit and vegetable producers committee in the region with 200 farmers. Sharma also played an important role in the development of agriculture and horticulture in the region by opening Krishi Sewa Kendra at the village level. Involved in agriculture and horticulture for about three decades, he motivated farmers in the Jaunsar-Bawar region to increase cultivation of cash crops for increasing their income.
Thursday, 28 January 2021 | PNS | Dehradun
