NIZAM VII REMEMBERED ON BIRTH ANNIV

Nizam VII Mir Osman Ali Khan was on Monday remembered on his 134th birth anniversary as a highly benevolent ruler who provided the best of facilities to all sections of people.

However, many admirers, who reached Masjid e Jodi, King Kati to pay floral tributes, were dismayed as they were not allowed inside the mosque where his abode is located. The custodian of the mosque pointed out that even the family members were ensuring social distance.

It may be recalled that the Nizam had set up a separate quarantine facility for patients suffering from cholera. The idea to have quarantine facilities was conceived by him to isolate the affected people from the general population following the 1908 Musi floods that claimed several lives and put health infrastructure under severe stress. The life cycle of malarial parasite was discovered by Sir Ronald Ross at the Fever Hospital. Today, the hospital is one of the nodal centres for coronavirus.

Mr Mir Najaf Ali Khan, the grandson of Mir Osman Ali Khan, said the last Nizam had contributed tremendously to the development of Hyderabad even after its accession. He said that despite overwhelming donations, basic PPEs are still unreachable to the doctors and migrant labourers are starving to death. All these expose lack of foresight of the government in handling the health emergency.

He said one of Mir Osman Ali Khan’s most profound contributions to health and welfare was the creation of Nizam’s Charitable Trust with a corpus fund of `5 crore. It still exists and many patients get monetary assistance from the Trust for their medical treatment, he said.