COURTESY TOI APRIL 3Farmer with four acres offers 1 acre for Covid-19 hosp, research centre
Neel.Kamal@timesgroup.com

Bathinda:

A farmer in a Punjab's Bathinda district has offered to donate one acre from his four acres to the Punjab government to build a hospital to treat patients of novel coronavirus or such pandemics.

Sixty-six-year-old Buta Singh of Bibiwala village, nearly eight kilometres from Bathinda town, farms on his four acres and follows the annual wheat-paddy cycle. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Amarinder Singh are making appeals for donations to deal with the situation and I have decided to give a portion of my land for the service of the humanity.”

Speaking to TOI, Buta Singh said “as coronavirus has spread across the world and there are no signs to contain it as even most developed country, the US, is finding it hard to stop its spread and has been devastated. I thought that if the government is willing to build some hospital or research centre for tackling such viruses, I can offer one acre for it.”

Buta Singh said his two sons and children of his eldest son ,who died some years ago, are all settled well.“ I have already divided land among the three families and now am left with little less than four acres, which is more than sufficient for me and my wife Nasib Kaur, 63. I farm on this land and if and whenever the government asks me, I will vacate it”