Prominent members of Indian expatriate community including Girish Kumar, C V Rappai, Hassan Chogule, Devis Edukulathur, Jutas Paul, Baburajan, Mahesh Gowda and Niveditha at the ICBF press conference at the Indian Cultural Center yesterday. PIC: Baher Am
DOHA: Indian Community Benevolent Forum (ICBF) under the patronage of Embassy of India has announced a campaign to collect donation over QR5m for humanitarian aid to flood affected people in the south Indian states of Kerala and Kodagu district of Karnataka.
The announcement was made at a press conference held at Indian Cultural Center (ICC) yesterday.
“The campaign will continue until September 30 whereby we expect to meet the target,” said President of ICBF, Devis Edukulathur.
He said the Forum already remitted over a half million Qatari riyals to provide relief to flood victims.
“We have raised another over QR250,000 and approaching to all Indian community to extend their helping hand for this noble cause.”
He said in Qatar, the Kerala Flood Relief Committee under Indian Embassy’s guidance has kick started a massive fund collection drive. “The collected fund will be transferred to the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund by the Indian Community Benevolent Forum. In order to overcome the situation and to meet the needs of cleaning, medical aid, rehabilitation, and reconstruction, a huge amount is to be generated through generous contributions,” said Edukulathur
He added that the donors can contact the ICBF Help Desk at ICC which is open from 8am to 12noon and 4pm to 8pm.
With the opening Indian schools, the drive for collecting money is expected to intensified. “I am leading the campaign to raise the money from Indian schools,” said Hassan Chougale adding that the target donation from Indian schools was two 20 million Indian rupees.
