Dubai boy donates cash award to Clean India Project

Dubai: Pranav Sreekumar, an Indian student in Dubai, used to get disturbed by seeing unhygienic conditions in some streets in Mumbai during his holidays.

When he received a good amount as cash prize for his academic excellence, the 10-year-old boy wanted to do his bit in improving the situation back home.

A grade six student of Indian International School, Pranav donated Rs50,000 (Dh2,778) that he received from an academic award to the Swatch Bharath Abhiyan (Clean India Project) of the Indian government.

The money was a portion of the cash prize he received for winning the Shaikh Hamdan Award for Educational Excellence.

He handed over the money to Sushma Swaraj, India’s minister for external affairs, in New Delhi on Thursday.

He was accompanied by his father Sree Kumar and mother Rashmi, sister Shilpa and Ramesh Mannath, general secretary of Indian People’s Forum in Dubai, who facilitated the meeting.

Speaking to Gulf News, Sree Kumar said Pranav decided to share a portion of his prize money hoping that it will help, even if in a small way, in making his home country clean and hygienic.

“He had used another portion of the cash prize to do some charity work over here. That included giving out 1500 iftar meals for poor workers in Sharjah’s Sajja Industrial Area last Ramadan,” he said.

Pranav’s contribution to the Indian government will be used for street cleaning and toilet building projects undertaken by the India Development Foundation of Overseas Indians, he said.