One Rupee Doctor

Simple life... (Extreme left) Dr Kolhe; (left) photos of him in his younger days treating villagers; 

(above) the doctor in his farm and (below) with his wife, two sons and the wife and children of 

his older sons.

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Dr Ravindra Kolhe forsook the opportunity of a lucrative practice and 

embraced a life of hardship to serve a remote village that lacked medical care

AMITA SARWAL

T

HE turning point in Dr Ravindra 

Kolhe’s life came in 1983. He hap-

pened to see David Werner’s book 

Where There Is No Doctor. The cover 

showed four people carrying a patient. 

Written below were the words: “Hospital 

30 miles away”.

This solved a dilemma — “Where 

should I start my journey?” — in the 

23-year-old’s mind. 

Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and Vino-

ba Bhave (an advocate of non-violence 

and human rights), he decided to use his 

medical school education to help those 

deprived of medical care. 

Much to the disappointment of his fa-

ther, Mr Deorao Kolhe, who worked with 

the Indian Railways, Dr Kohle did not 

plan to return to his village — Shegaon, 

in Buldana district of Maharashtra — af-

ter graduating from the Nagpur Medical 

College. 

Instead, Dr Kolhe searched for a re-

mote place that did not offer any medi-

cal care. He found Bairagarh, in Melghat, 

Maharashtra. 

In the 1980s, the motorable journey to 

this small village started from Amravati 

and ended at Harisal. From there, Bai-

ragarh was a 40km walk. 

The doctor recalled what his professor 

had told him: “When I told Dr Jaju about 

my plans, he advised me that before prac-

tising in such a remote place, I should 

master three skills. 

“First, delivering a baby without the fa-

cility of sonography or blood transfusion; 

second, diagnosing pneumonia without 

an X-ray machine; and third, curing diar-

rhoea. I went to Mumbai (then Bombay) 

and spent six months learning these tech-

niques.” 

Despite being armed with these skills, 

when Dr Kolhe reached Bairagarh in 

1987, he realised how unprepared he was. 

“I started my practice, charging Rs2 for 

the first consultation and Rs1 for subse-

quent visits. But on the 13th day, I faced 

my inadequacy. A man had lost his hand 

in a blast. I was not a surgeon and didn’t 

know how to treat him. That was when I 

decided to do my MD from Nagpur,” said 

Dr Kolhe, who left Bairagarh in 1987 and 

returned after his marriage in 1989.

 “It took time for the people to accept 

me. I had three patients on my first day. 

In 15 days, the number increased to 25 

and since then, there has been no look-

ing back. People now believe in medical 

science, though some minds still ruled by 

superstitions get the help of tantriks for 

treatment,” he adds. 

Unexpected fame

His pioneering thesis, Malnutrition In 

Melghat, attracted global attention after a 

BBC Radio coverage. 

The infant mortality rate then was an 

alarming 200 per 1,000 infants. It has 

come down to 40 per 1,000. 

“This figure will decrease as the govern-

ment and local NGOs are working hard,” 

says Dr Kolhe modestly, not crediting 

himself. 

Getting married was not easy for him. 

He had decided that he will return to 

Bairagarh (after his medical studies) only 

after finding a like-minded life partner. 

It had to be someone who was willing to 

face the hardship of living in Bairagarh. 

Dr Kolhe’s conditions were, first, the 

40km trek to Bairagarh. Second, it would 

be a Rs5 court marriage. Third, his wife 

would have to manage on Rs400 a month,  

his estimated earning. 

 And finally, she should not be ashamed 

to beg — not for herself but for those who 

needed it more than them.

But his bride was waiting, and in 1988 

she came in the form of Dr Smita Manjare 

from Nagpur. She had a well-established 

practice there, which she willingly gave up 

and followed Dr Kolhe.  

When Dr Smita joined him, she, too, 

had to gain the respect and acceptance of 

the villagers like her husband. 

This came about when Dr Smita was 

pregnant with their first child. 

Dr Kolhe decided to deliver the baby 

himself, in the same manner as he had 

done for the village women. 

But complications arose and the baby 

was born with meningitis, pneumonia and 

septicaemia. The options were to take the 

mother and child to the nearest hospital 

in Akola or continue treating them in Bai-

ragarh. 

Dr Smita decided to stay. 

This gesture, of “being one of them” 

instantly won her the approval of the vil-

lagers.  

“Fatalities in Melghat were then due to 

malnutrition, tetanus, pneumonia, ma-

laria and snake bites. But poverty was 

the main underlying reason. 

“Villagers died of pneumonia because 

they didn’t have warm clothes for win-

ter. They succumbed to malnutrition as 

once the farming season was over, there 

was no work and hence no money to 

buy food. This root cause was what we 

wanted to ‘cure’,” shared Dr Kolhe. 

With the successful track record of the 

doctors in improving their health, the 

tribal community felt the husband-and-

wife team had answers to curing their 

cattle and improving farming prospects. 

To help them, Dr Kolhe learnt how 

to treat animals from a veterinarian 

friend. And he also studied agriculture 

at the Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi 

Vidyapeeth, Akola. 

Yet, upon having developed fungus-

proof seeds, the doctor found he had 

no takers among the farmers. So the 

couple started farming to prove the im-

portance of new farming techniques. 

His sons join in

A big impetus came when the Kolhes’ 

older son, Rohit, 27, started farming 

and holding awareness camps for the 

farmers. 

The Kolhes have two sons. 

The younger one, Ram, 24, is a third-

year medical student at the Govern-

ment Medical College in Akola. 

He wants to  become a surgeon and 

follow his parents’ footsteps to help im-

prove the health and lives of the resi-

dents of Melghat.  

Beyond medicare, the Kolhes have 

introduced forest conservation meth-

ods and have been able to help farmers 

predict drought and study the four-year 

conservation cycle. 

The Public Distribution System (a 

government-sponsored chain of shops 

entrusted with the work of distributing 

basic food and non-food commodities 

to the needy sections of society at cheap 

prices), ensured there was enough food 

always. 

This led to Melghat becoming Maha-

rashtra’s first suicide-free zone for farm-

ers. 

Work in areas such as power genera-

tion, wages and women’s health and 

education also continue.  

As word spreads about the Kolhes 

work, the state’s Minister of Public 

Works Department (PWD) visited the 

area. 

While he was impressed at Bai-

ragarh’s upliftment of the tribal com-

munity, he was appalled to see how the 

Kolhes lived. 

He offered to build them a home. 

Instead, Dr Smita asked for roads and 

connectivity. The PWD has since pro-

vided surface connectivity to over 70 

per cent of the villages in Melghat.  

“Health infrastructure has increased 

manifold, but power infrastructure is 

yet to get a reboot. Despite having elec-

tricity in Bairagarh, there is power cut 

for almost 14 hours daily. The voltage 

is so low that the farmers are unable to 

run their pumps. 

“Communication is also a huge hurdle 

to develop this place. If you are writing 

about us, then please add that the need 

for electricity in these villages for farm-

ing is as important as it is in metro cities 

to run a mall,” said Dr Kolhe.

“I am lucky to have a wife and two 

sons who accept the kind of lifestyle I 

have chosen for all of us. 

“Without their support, I couldn’t 

have come this far. They have never 

complained about being deprived of 

the luxuries of a city life,” he affirmed.

Even after 37 years, Dr Kolhe’s one 

rupee fee for his patients remain. 

And his dream of a well-established 

operation theatre has come true. 

Recognition has come for his com-

mitment, but he says he accepts the 

awards only because they make his fa-

ther proud. 

“I have really done nothing for the 

people of Melghat. I just tried to give 

them what they should have got from 

the state long, long back. 

“Change is inevitable. But still there 

is a long way to go in making the peo-

ple self-dependent,” concluded Dr Kol-

he humbly.

➥ 

tabla@sph.com.sg

LEARNING BY GIVING THEIR TIME 

AT DOCTOR’S VILLAGE: PAGE 14

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