Actor Mahesh Babu and his wife Namrata Shirodkar are keen on working with Telangana Government to make Siddapur the best model smart village in the youngest State of the country.
In the chambers of Panchayati Raj Minister Jupally Krishna Rao, Ms. Namrata Shirodkar on Monday spoke about the development plans for the village that Mahesh Babu had adopted in Kothur mandal Mahabubnagar district.
Herself an actress, she spent an hour interacting with the Minister in the presence of District Collector T.K. Sreedevi and senior officials. “We are interested to work for developing Siddapur. We have already visited it twice, when health camps were conducted,” she said.
Interestingly, the actor was to have originally adopted Chinthalapalli village of Gattu, about 100 km from the district headquarters town of Mahabubnagar. However, on the suggestion of IT Minister K.T. Rama Rao, he chose to lend his name for integrated development of Siddapur, located about 20 km from the Shamshabad International Airport.
Coming to Siddapur, the Minister himself admitted that nothing short of an attitudinal change, of the mindset would usher in development.
“Most houses do not have toilets and our officials are finding it tough to motivate them though Government was ready to construct individual latrines. Another area where Mr. Mahesh Babu has agreed to work with us is adding new classrooms adjacent to the existing high school building,” he told presspersons.
Also present were Shadnagar MLA Y. Anjaiah Yadav, Heal-a-Child Foundation Founder Trustee Sabina Xavier, Mahabubnagar Zilla Parishad Chief Executive Officer V. Laxminarayana, District Panchayat Officer Venkateswarlu and Kothur Tahsildar Nagaiah.
Ms. Sreedevi said that 490 individual latrines at a unit cost of Rs. 12,000 each and additional classrooms at the rate of Rs. 8.5 lakh each for the school were sanctioned and work was slowly picking up. “We will also sanction the double-laning and black-topping of the road behind the village that leads to the main road to an extent of about 1.5 km. Siddapur’s proximity to the airport and the highway is a unique selling proposition for other celebrities to chip in,” she explained.
Asked about what the actor’s contribution would be to the development of this village, Ms. Namrata said the exact numbers were not known yet as they were working it out.
