Founders

Founders of Sagar Trust -

Dr (Capt) Anjali Mehta, MBBS, DO, DNB
Specialist in Cataract and Oculoplastic Surgery with over 28 years experience in the medical profession and 23 years in ophthalmology.
Founder : Vasundhara Eye Center
Founder : Justice Seekers Civil Society platform
Anjali's detailed resume
Mr. Kapil Mehta, MBA (IIM Ahmedabad), Mechanical Engineer (IIT, Delhi)
Managing Director, SecureNow TechServices Pvt. Ltd. (www.securenow.in)

Message from the Founders, Sagar Trust -
The Sagar Trust came into being in 2009. As young doctors, most of us were given a freer hand when treating poorer patients as compared to wealthier private patients. Most of these poor people were very gracious - they thanked and blessed us profusely for any good outcomes and took the blame on themselves and their destiny when outcomes were less than successful. As we became more skilled we were increasingly allowed to handle the richer patients and our success was judged by the economic standing of the group that we were assigned to deal with. This did not seem fair; the poor who had aided our early learning, deserved our skills the most. I was determined that a considerable part of my experience  should be shared with those whom I will always remain indebted to for my skills - those poor patients. We formed the trust so that over the years many poor people benefit from the expertise of skilled ophthalmologists and optometrists and have access to quality eye services free of cost. 

Since many years, I have also been working for women’s safety and  empowerment as part of a platform called the Justice Seekers (a platform co-founded by her after Nirbhaya’s gang rape) where several working and retired professionals and women’s NGOs collaborate on women related issues. Some of the issues I have worked extensively on are amendments in Juvenile Justice laws, justice for Nirbhaya’s parents, bottlenecks in the judiciary, and welfare of sexual assault victims. I am a member of several women’s advisory and advocacy groups and speaks and write on women’s issues in the national dailies. My articles are stored on my blogsite: https://anjalimehta.blogspot.com/. I have handled diverse aspects of gender issues ranging from domestic violence to adult education for women to mediating in hospital-based harassment cases. Our citizens' group is also part of the National Alliance for increased representation of women in the Indian Parliament. I led the social initiative programme for the Women’s Ophthalmic Society of India for a year where doctors learnt how to incorporate social work into their routine practices. 

These two collateral areas of work have shaped our work as well, Drawing on our experiences, our work follows a cost effective, holistic model.
Our long standing experience has been in providing medico - social care to financially underprivileged and marginalized communities such as sex workers, daily wage earners, and women in resettlement cluster communities amongst others.
We do this through a health care model wherein we provide:

1. Regular ophthalmic care (our core area of expertise) at the community’s doorstep through regular, comprehensive camps along with effective and long-term follow up through our local NGO partners in the community. Our free eye check up camps are conducted with regularity in areas lacking facilities, using quality equipment whereby the beneficiaries are provided with eye medicines, general health tonics and customized spectacles at their doorstep. We facilitate blood tests for diabetes and anaemia during the camp where required. Ophthalmic surgeries are carried out at our centre, free of cost. Our documentation is meticulous.
   
   
2. Along with ophthalmic care, our camps provide a safe and friendly contact point where patients are encouraged to voice other concerns they face for example mental issues, intimate partner violence, etc (women’s issues- our second area of experience). After we gain an understanding of their challenges we co-opt doctors of other specialties, social workers, drug counselors, motivational speakers, mental health providers etc. in our subsequent camps to address these or else refer the patient in a supervised manner where camp level help is not possible. Our early experience with sex workers some years ago (the newest phase of our project is still ongoing there) is described  in our first white paper: http://bit.ly/OphthalmicCareforSexWorkers
   
   

We seek to establish long term networks that the community can leverage whenever the need arises. We have a collaborative network of many partner NGOs. Our model of working fits in well with the WHO global strategy of 2016-2026 of ‘IPCHS’- integrated, people-centered health services. The Trust is registered with the Government of India and has been provided tax exempt status under section 80 G of the Income Tax Act.

One of our main concerns is that most of the donations should actually reach the intended beneficiary. We intend to spend as little as possible on overheads by using our existing infrastructure and keep overhead costs to a minimum.

The Trustee Board currently has eight trustees of high standing and repute who are experts in their respective fields. We expect the collective energy and ideas to produce excellent results. We hope that over the years Sagar trust becomes a well-respected name, synonymous with quality work and a high standard of ethics and transparency.

Sagar Trust - List of Trustees
1. Dr. (Capt) Anjali Mehta (detailed resume)    Dr Anjali Mehta is an ex-army eye surgeon with her own private practice in Delhi ,  Vasundhara Eye Centre (www.eyeclinicdelhi.com), which was founded by her in 2008. She also runs a charitable trust, Sagar Trust, founded in 2009 which looks after the ophthalmology needs of the economically underpriviledged.
Anjali started her medical career in the Army Medical Corps. After the army, she has worked in the ophthalmology department in several institutes such as Shroff Eye Institute, Batra Hospital, Icare Hospital, Noida, Bensups hospital, Rockland Hospital, Dwarka among others. She was in charge of the oculoplasty department for several years at Icare hospital, Noida. Anjali has been a teacher and trainer and has presented papers at National conferences. She has also published papers in National and International peer-reviewed journals and been a reviewer for journals.
In recent years, Anjali has been working for women’s safety and  empowerment as part of a platform called the Justice Seekers which is a platform where several working and retired professionals and women’s NGO’S collaborate on women related issues. Some of the issues she has worked extensively on are amendments in Juvenile Justice laws, justice for Nirbhaya’s parents and children’s awareness of women’s safety issues. She is a member of several women’s advisory and advocacy groups and speaks and writes on women’s issues. She is currently working on a citizen’s initiative on the need for speed and accountability in the Judiciary and helping sex-workers.
Anjali was educated at St. Mary’s convent, Nainital and the Army Public School, Delhi. She did her medical studies at Armed Forces Medical College, Pune and her post-graduation in ophthalmology from Delhi University (Research and Refrerral, Army Hospital). She has done observerships at AIIMS and Samsung Medical Centre, Korea.

 2. Mr. Kapil Mehta     Mr. Kapil Mehta is the Managing Director of SecureNow Techservices Pvt. Ltd, a venture that he co-founded (www.securenow.in). He was formerly the Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of DLF Pramerica Life Insurance Company Ltd. (DPLI), a joint venture that he was associated with from its inception in 2006. Prior to joining DPLI, Kapil has worked at companies such as McKinsey & Company and Unilever. Apart from India, he has worked in South Korea, Brazil and Thailand. Kapil is an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and a mechanical engineering graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.    

3. Dr. Ritu Aurora     Dr. Aurora, an alumnus of Maulana Azad Medical College, is a highly regarded eye surgeon who has been involved with teaching and training eye doctors in cataract surgery. She is a director with VisionPlus Eye Centre, NOIDA. She is a prolific surgeon who has done over 25,000 cataract surgeries. Her other areas of interest include paediatric ophthalmology and Lasik. Dr. Aurora is a frequent presenter at ophthalmic conferences.    
4. Dr. (Col) Prakash Chitalkar     Dr. Chitalkar, an alumnus of Armed forces Medical College has had an illustrious career in the field of oncology both in the Army and outside it. He has worked at and headed the oncology department at reputed hospitals around the country. He has authored and presented over a hundred presentations. He has taught and trained several young oncologists. He is a member of various boards and oncology societies. His special expertise is in paediatric haemato-oncology. He is currently heading the department at Asia Pacific Cancer Hospital at Faridabad.    

5. Mr. Ranjit Gupta     Mr. Gupta is an entrepreneur in the field of renewable energy. He has over 25 years of experience in the energy sector in engineering and managerial roles in reputed companies in India and abroad. He has also worked with Schlumberger Anadrill, Jakarta as Country Manager from November '01 - May '03. He started his career with the leading multinational oil field services company in the world, Schlumberger, during which he served across the world in various operational and managerial roles. He is a Bachelor of Technology (Mechanical Engineering) from lIT- Bombay.    

6. Mr. Deepak Verma    Mr Deepak Verma is a highly respected financial services professional - experienced in insurance and banking. Currently he has founded and leads Sheffield and Vermark, a specialist international retained search firm. Prior to that Mr. Verma has led the financial services practice of a global top ten retained executive search firm. He was earlier the Managing Director of CGU-Birla Life Insurance (now Aviva) and has considerable experience in senior positions with highly reputed multinationals such as Citibank, Gillete, HSBC and ABN. Mr. Verma is an alumnus of XLRI Jamshedpur.

7. Mr. Amit Sinha    Mr. Sinha is an experienced corporate professional. Previously he has worked as the President, Indicus Analytics. Mr. Sinha has deep experience of the health care sector in India. He has been involved with several projects for industry and government. Amongst others these included a dental health study for the Dental Council of India and a study of surgical procedures in 600 large and medium sized hospitals of the 5 metro cities of India - for a private sector client. He has also worked in reputed companies such as Indian Agribusiness Systems, ITW Signode and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. He is an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad, IIT Madras and Nagpur University.

8. Mr. Ritin Rai    Ritin Rai is currently a senior advocate in the Supreme Court who specialises in corporate law and litigation. Prior to this he has been an associate at Pathak and Associates and also with the business practice group at Jones Day. Ritin is an alumnus of St Stephens college, Campus Law Centre Delhi University, Harvard law school and Oxford university.