Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao returned to his native village Chintamadaka on Monday with a bag of goodies and reveived an emotional welcome from family and old friends. He arrived at noon and spent day with his old friends, relatives and villagers as he had promised.
As soon as he arrived, people gathered at the venue where he was to address the village and welcomed him with huge applause. As Mr Rao walked past, many people reached out to touch him or shake hands.
Some of them greeted Mr Rao by name, and old women blessed him. Several villagers handed over representations regarding their grievances. He made time for all of them. On reaching to dais, Mr Rao touched the feet of Mr Balakishan Rao, his paternal uncle, and sought his blessings.
During his speech Mr Rao announced financial assistance of around Rs 300 crore to several villages of Siddipet district, including Chintamadka.
He announced Rs 10 lakh assistance for each hous-ehold and said the people could use this money to buy farm equipment like tractors and harvesters. He said officials had estimated that there were about 1,800 families in Chindamadaka. He was sanctioning Rs 200 crore, he said, so that no one is left behind.
Mr Rao suggested to the people to bring down the old houses and build new ones with modern facilities like solar power. He said once the villagers arrived at a consensus the government would sanction 2,000 houses to the village.
He recalled that he had to go to Gudur, Tornala and Punnur villages as there was no school in Chintamadaka during his childhood. He said it was his responsibility to take care of the villages where he studied, and announced Rs 1 crore for the three villages.
Expressing his gratitude to his birthplace, Mr Rao gave the credit of his success to the blessings of the people of Chintama-daka. He said it was Siddipet which inspired the Telangana statehood movement and brought him to prominence.
The village would be developed as a role model and would become like a chunk of gold. The Chief Minister instructed officials to complete sanctioned development programmes in six months.
He said he used to play with paper boats in front of his house as the tank near the village would overflow for three months during the rains. He said Chintamadaka was well-placed in terms of Vastu as it was surrounded by lakes.
Mr Rao said he would visit the village after six months and inaugurate all the schemes. He instructed the leaders to involve every person in the development of the village.
After the meeting, he visited the Rama temple in the village and then had lunch with the villagers. He inaugurated the primary school building and planted a sapling to mark the occasion. Mr Rao also spent some time with the family of his teacher Raghava Reddy.
