Tushar Sampat, the National Award Winner for outstanding individual achievement, gave Cityplus an insight into his work. Tushar Sampat, a 54 year old is a recovered addict. In the year 2000 he had launched a health portal- aarogya.com which has been instrumental in conducting successful matrimonial meets across Maharashtra for people living with HIV. He has been working on a new project named “Utthaan Seva” for the vocational rehabilitation to help the recovering addicts.

Tushar being young at heart, he devotes his whole time towards helping recovering addicts. He has a deep interest in the field of medicine and pharmacology. He carries an interest in spirituality and has completed research work on the same. He says, “Due to spirituality, the perspective of life is more balanced for me.”

He has created a Trust-Vikiran Information Dissemination Foundation, a support group called addictionsupport.aarogya.com. He has translated de-addiction content into Marathi and Gujarati making this support group a multi lingual site, so as to reach as many people in rural and urban areas.

He runs a health portal- aarogya.com which works for the matrimonial of HIV affected people in Maharashtra. He is a trustee of Sanvedana, which is an epilepsy support group.

He has proactively worked for the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India, UNODC in South Asia and the Department of Social Welfare, Government of Maharashtra. He also contributes his time, energy and resources towards addiction prevention and awareness.

In 2011, he has conceptualized and implemented a project “Utthaan Seva” which contributes towards the vocational rehabilitation of recovering addicts. They are currently working towards government agreements and involvement. The project works towards making available a platform, a website, that will help recovering addicts to achieve gainful employment, based on their skills that will in turn help them to build a strong career for themselves.

On the 26th of June, 2014, he was honored with the National Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement by a non-professional in the field of De-addiction. The Ministry of Social Justice and special assistance has found value in his projects and is actively involved to achieve socially meaningful goals.

"I am very satisfied with the kind of quality work I am doing and I truly believe that I can help make an impactful change in the society. Tushar Sampat"