Jaipur, a town in northern India is famous in strife-torn area as the birthplace of prosthesis or artificial limb, knee and foot known as Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti (BMVSS) Jaipur Foot that has revolutionized life for millions of landmine amputees.

The beauty of BMVSS Jaipur Foot is its lightness and mobility as those who wear it can run, climb trees and pedal bicycles.

BMVSS Jaipur Foot is the world’s largest prosthesis provider, with more than 16, 000 prosthetic fittings per year. In fact, Jaipur Foot is now in more than 16 countries where BOP patients exist such as Afghanistan, Angola, Somalia, Iraq, Mozambique, Cambodia, Vietnam, Lebanon among others.

According to S.M Mehta, an additional C.E.O of BMVSS Jaipur Foot, the main motive behind setting it up, is to provide limbs, calipers and other aids and appliances to as many who are disabled as possible at its center so that such victims can have a normal life without fear of stigma.

“We want to help these victims regain their mobility and dignity, thereby making them normal, self-respecting and productive members of the society,” he said.

“The focus is also on the poor disabled who remain deprived of limbs, aids and appliances under the unaffordable health care system,” he added.

In an answer to where they get their funds from as a non-governmental governmental agency to run their affairs, he said; “most of our are grants given by the Government of India (Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment), supported by interests or dividend income earned from the corpus of BMVSS created over the last three decades as well as donations of generous and caring individuals and entities.”

In an interview with NL Prapjati, a 50 years old technician with BMVSS Jaipur Foot who has been warring the artificial foot limb for the past twenty years, he revealed that, the foot has been the reason his three children and wife have survived throughout the years.

“when I lost my two limbs in that accident that almost claimed my life, my whole world came down crushing, life became very unbearable as I couldn’t walk or do anything but I have my life back, I work and move about like any normal person does and I am able to earn a living all thanks to Jaipur Foot, Knee and limbs,” he said.



Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti (BMVSS), Jaipur, an Ngo, was registered as society, under Rajasthan Societies Registration Act 261/1974-75 on March 29th 1975.

This was to commemorate 2500th year of Nirvana of Bhagwan Mahaveer, the apostle of Ahimsa and the Lord of compassion. BMVSS Jaipur Foot is a purely secular, non-religious, on-governmental, non-political, non-sectarian, non-regional institution, for helping the physically challenged, particularly the financially weak and under-privileged.

The idea of setting up the society arose not of a trauma. Sheri D.R. Mehta, Founder and Chief Patron of BMVSS met with a serious life-threatening road accident.

With his own self-realization and also promptings from the treating orthopedic surgeons, Dr. Ganga Ram Purohit and Dr. M.M. Bapna, both of Mahatma Ghandi Hospital, Jodhpur, the idea of setting up BMVSS was born. Dr. Bapna and Dr. Probity will constantly remind Mr.Mehta of the plight of poor patients who had lost their limbs.

They ask- where would a poor person losing their limbs by accidents or diseases go to get artificial limb? Thus in recognition of the need of an institutionalized arrangement for helping such people, BMVSS was set up. It has branches in Bikaner, Kota, Bharatpur, Ajmer, Pali, Udaipur, Ambala and many more.