Kiren Rijiju fails to keep appointment with archer suffering from rare disease
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Kiren Rijiju was scheduled to meet national level archer Gohela Boro on Friday to listen to her plea for financial assistance considering her autoimmune disease but he failed to do the same. The archer has been sick for three years now and requires significant aid to keep up with her medical bills.
Gohela Boro, an archer belonging to Assam with over 70 medals to her name at the national level, was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease in 2016. She is currently in Delhi for her regular checkup from AIIMS in the national capital while her representative Jyotishman Das had gone to visit the Union Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju on Friday to seek his help in treating her. However, he failed to achieve the same after the former was unavailable.
“In July we sent her files to the Sports Ministry but since we did not get any reply, we wanted to meet the Sports Minister upfront and tell him about Gohela’s needs. Since I couldn’t meet him, I delivered her file to the office of the SAI Director General,” he was quoted saying by TOI.
The archer in the past has been given grants by the government to help treat herself, with Rajvardan Singh Rathore having sanctioned a sum of Rs 5 lakhs for her from the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay National Welfare Fund for Sportsperson in his tenure as Sports Minister. He had further allowed a sum of Rs 3.37 lakhs to be granted to her that ran until January this year. Apart from the said, she has also been receiving regular help from her state government as well as several NGOs and well-wishers.Â
“I have received a lot of help but since Rs. 3 lakh is required every year to meet my medical needs, it’s impossible for me to carry on without help,” the 23-year-old said.
She has been showing signs of improvement and even though she needs to travel to AIIMS multiple times a year, she has restarted her career in archery and has been teachng budding talents free of cost in the rural areas.
"I was given a compound bow by Vasavdutta Foundation early this year and I started training almost 30 kids every day, many of whom have already started participating in national meets,” she signed off.
