Untimely deaths cause immense pain to family and friends. However, two road accidents involving two youngsters left the entire village of Basheerbad, Telangana in mourning.
To reduce the number of casualties and injuries, the village youth came up with the novel idea of buying helmets and lending it to villagers, free of cost, whenever they use their two-wheelers. This move has reduced road accident casualties, according to the villagers.
The village in Nizamabad district had lost two of its youngsters five years ago — Harikrishna and Rakesh, both in their 20s — in separate road accidents. These tragic events prompted another youngster, Basheti Nagesh, and a few others, to purchase a few helmets, says village sarpanch Devender.
“Two accidents happened in quick succession in 2013. The ones who died were really young. Their deaths could have been avoided, had they worn helmets. They did not have injury in any other body part, only suffered grievous injuries to their heads,” Devender recalls.
“Realising that both Harikrishna and Rakesh could have been saved had they worn helmets, Nagesh had come up with this idea. Few others also agreed with his idea, so they pitched in money and bought 40 helmets,” he adds.
The helmets which were purchased are kept at a store near the entrance of the village. The store owner, Kasturi Gangaram, keeps a track of the villagers who borrow the helmets. The villagers return the helmet once they come back from the town.
Speaking to TNM, Gangaram says, “The villagers chose me to do the job of maintaining the ledger and lending helmets. Although I am occupied with the customers and other work, I am doing it as a social service. It is a novel initiative, which our youngsters took up,” he says, proudly.
According to Gangaram, earlier only the residents of Basheerabad were borrowing helmets. But now, residents from nearby villages like Choutuppal are also borrowing them.
“Many villagers have now bought their own helmets, but at times when they forget it at home, they borrow it from here. Earlier we used to struggle with these limited helmets, but things have changed now,” he says.
“My shop is open from 6 am to 9 pm. If someone needs it earlier, they come and take it the day before. They can keep it with them even for a week,” he says.
While this initiative was started nearly three years ago, it came to light after a television channel, V6, highlighted it.
Basheti Nagesh, the brainchild of this initiative, is presently working in Dubai.