Mumbai student Kaira Desai has collected and redistributed over 9,600 unused pills worth ₹1.1 lakh through The Pill Project, a medicine donation initiative connecting households with hospitals and patients in need.

Mumbai: What began as a simple observation during a hospital internship has grown into a medicine donation initiative that has already collected and redistributed more than 9,600 unused pills worth around ₹1.1 lakh.

Seventeen-year-old Kaira Desai, a Grade 11 student at Dhirubhai Ambani International School, launched The Pill Project in April 2025 after noticing something that stayed with her. During breaks at a hospital where she was interning, she often saw long queues outside the charity cell.

"I kept wondering why so many people were waiting there. Then I realised many of them couldn't afford even basic medicines," she recalled.

At the same time, she thought about the medicines lying unused in households after treatments end. "We often buy full strips or bottles, use only part of them and then forget about the rest until they expire. Meanwhile, there are people who genuinely need those medicines," she said.