Jill Beckingham, wife of Britain’s Deputy High commissioner in Mumbai, Peter Beckingham, will retrace the 360-km route of 89 years old Dandi March to raise funds for Mumbai and Gujarat-based NGOs serving the deprived.

Jill will start her ‘India-UK Friendship’ march from Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati Ashram at 6:30 am on November 18. Jill will end her 17-day walk(with three days of rest periods en route) at Dandi beach of south Gujarat on December 4.

Jill’s walk is sponsored by companies like Tata, Reliance ADAG Group, Mahindra & Mahindra, Essar, Aditya Birla Group, Cox and Kings, Godrej and GlaxoSmithKline.

Her unique effort has also been supported by Tushar Gandhi, great grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, and ace cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and the Association of British Scholars, Vadodara chapter, Gujarat. ‘I fully support the efforts of Jill Beckingham and her group in undertaking this daunting walk to raise funds for Indian charities. Good luck and good fund raising!’ said Tendulkar in his message.

The proceeds from the walk will support six NGOs, three in Mumbai and three in Gujarat, all founded by British nationals who have settled in India.

The Mumbai-based NGOs include Magic Bus, which works with disadvantaged children through sports, Muktangan, which is a teacher and community training centre, and Apnalaya, which works with children living in and around dump sites.

The Gujarat NGOs are the Akshar Trust, which works with hearing impaired children, Shram Mandir which works with leprosy patients and the Bhasha Centre which works with tribal people.

Jill Beckingham has earlier walked from London to Brighton to raise money for NGOs in the Philippines when her husband was earlier posted as the British ambassador.