ONE can change a Village

Beautiful Childhood, lifelong friends, strength to face difficult circumstances, never leaving memories… Village gives many things to many people. “For the village which gave everything, it is wrong in not giving something back” felt Chitturi Jagapati Rao. Even though he earned crores in business, he says the wealth he earned seems petty compared to the little help he did to his village. By the way what he did was…

Kulla is a beautiful village in K.Gangavaram Mandal in East Godavari District. Even though a village is not good looking, it should be good for living - School to shape child’s future, temple for praying by the elderly, pure water for drinking, funeral place to respect the dead. People can live happily in such villages which have these basic facilities. But, Businessman Jagapati Rao was worried that his village didn’t have these basic facilities and decided to do something for his village. He adopted Kulla village and took the responsibility of developing  the village. Villagers are now happily enjoying the fruits of those development works.

“Srinivasa Hatcheries” is among the popular poultry companies of the country. Its founder Jagapati Rao climbed every step one by one to make the company worth crores of rupees. Whenever he gets time, he goes to his village and help the village in a small way according to the need. Since these helps didn’t go in an organized way, full-fledged results were not achieved. Once, he went to his village along with his family. All the village people approached him for donation in constructing Dwajasthambam (flagpole in hindu temple). At that moment, Jagapati Rao became nostalgic of the childhood days when he asked donations for school construction. Since Jagapati Rao didn’t have a school in his village, he travelled to Kakinada (40 km from his village) daily for studying. Disliking the situation, he along with his friends started to collect donations for school construction in the village. Since the villagers are small income groups, they couldn’t get the required funds. Without getting disappointed, he asked for Rice bags as donation during the harvesting season. After selling those donated Rice bags, they were able to construct rooms for school. Those days, Jagapati Rao didn’t have money and had to ask villagers for funds. But today, without asking for funds, he decided to develop the village by himself. He adopted the village and became a part of its development.

Jagapati Rao believes that the growth in his life is only because he was able to study. He wanted to provide the same opportunity to the village kids. So, he constructed a Zilla Parishad High School with his own funds and provided all facilities. He got Chairs, Benches and other furniture made and supplied to school. To encourage kids to come to school, he provided nutritious food at school. He bought some land around the school, built a fence and turned it to a playground suitable for kids to play. As a result, what used to be a 100 students, now are more than 250. Tenth class students are given special classes and also workshops are conducted to increase awareness of various courses which can help them for their future. An RO purifying plant has been setup to free villagers of polluted water and its consequent diseases. He got a new look to the ruined Shiva temple and setup a Dwajasthambam. He re-constructed the library making all kinds of books available. Along with Apollo Doctors, he conducted free medical camps to undertake tests related to heart, lungs, eye problems of Villagers and helped them for their treatment. Since the Village is in Godavari Basin, nearby villages bury the dead in Kulla village, believing it as a sacred place. For such people, a building has been constructed in the premises and modified the surroundings beautifully. He monitors these development activities with the help of his son – Suresh Rayudu (Andhra Pradesh CII Chairman) and Daughter – Padmaja.

He started on his next steps – conducting training classes to use modern methods of farming without using chemical fertilizers and also turning Kulla into a smart village. He says that “Being modern is not enough to be called Smart Village, Youth in the village should be able to compete with the world and he is always ready to do the required help”.