80-yr-old Sikh NRI to walk across India for charity

London, October 4

An 80-year-old NRI philanthropist in the UK will undertake a 4,160-km long walk from Kanyakumari to New Delhi in six months to raise 1.5 million pounds for various charities.

Balwant Grewal, who is the chairman of India Association, will commence his marathon walk from Kanyakumari on October 25 and finish in New Delhi on April 4 next year.

The London-based NRI, known to his friends as Bobby, would cover Madurai, Pondicherry, Chennai, Nellore, Guntur, Vishakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Asansol, Ranchi, Gaya, Patna, Varanasi, Allahabad, Kanpur, Lucknow and Noida.

During the charity walk, a four-day Mobile Cancer Screening camp will be held in Patna from February 26 and one in Delhi in April where about 400 to 500 patients will be screened every day, Joint Secretary of the India Association Rajan Bhanot told PTI.

The funds he would raise would go to Great Ormond Street Hospital, Children's Charity and the British Asian Trust in the UK and deserving causes in India.

Bobby had earlier walked from Amritsar to Kanyakumari and Edinburgh to London to raise funds for charitable causes and cancer research in UK and India.

From the funds raised so far, the Indian Association donated 80,000 pounds to St Marks Hospital (Harrow) for Bowel Cancer Research in 2009, 50,000 pounds to the Northwick Park Hospital for Cancer Research in 2007, 45,000 pounds to Northwick Park Hospital and Oxford University for HIV research in 2007, 2,000 pounds to Earthquake Relief in Gujarat and House building in Bhuj in 2005, 25,000 pounds to Haiti Earthquake.

The forthcoming walk will be a challenging one, due to Bobby's age (he will be celebrating his 81st birthday during the talk), the extreme heat and the tough terrain.

He will need to cover at least 30 to 40 km a day, in order to reach various milestones along the route, Bhanot said.

Bobby will be accompanied by a single support vehicle and a team of four, his walk project director Bhanot, a driver, a chef and a physiotherapist who will ensure that he remains in good health during the marathon walk. —PTI