Located on the side of National Highway, Jagannadha Raju Nagar, a private layout has emerged as a model colony, thanks to the trend-setting initiative of the residents.
The colony connecting Patha Venkojipalem and HB Colony road and Siva Sankar Nagar (Isukathota) was an agriculture land till mid-1980s. A.V.S.S. Rama Rao and I.B. Narasimha Raju were the senior most residents. Nandini and Ravi Chakra were the first two apartments built in the area in 1990, which later saw spurt in construction activity. Like other areas located in the city, the colony also saw boom in realty prices. Now flats are available at Rs.4,500 per square feet or so whereas senior residents say when the colony was in its initial stage of formation, they could buy a spacious two bed flat for just Rs.3 lakh in early 1990s.
Though it used to be a nightmare to move in the colony after sunset due to open defecation and anti-social activities with no street lights and blacktop roads till 1992-93, today the colony, home for nearly 1500 people can boast of a being one of the best maintained colonies.
The credit for transforming the private layout into a posh colony goes to the plethora of initiatives taken by the Jagannatha Raju Nagar Residents’ Welfare Association (JRNRWA). It has also been successful in promoting ‘self-help’ concept among the residents. As the roads were initially not laid, the association took the initiative to lay roads on its own by offering ‘shramadanam’ and contributing around Rs. 20,000 for a 600-metre road connecting the Highway and Municipal High School. Later, it laid another road from the HB Colony to Anjaneyaswamy temple. The association regularly takes up clean and green programme and holds awareness programmes on various social issues like women safety and need to maintain ecological balance and personal hygiene at regular intervals. It also conducts medical camps where hypertension, diabetes and eye check-ups are conducted. Body mass index and lipid profile tests are also done to sensitise the residents on their health status.
The association celebrated its first decade by holding a symposium on December 22, 2003 and second decade celebration is planned by conducting a day-long symposium on combating the degrading of environment: Role of residents’ welfare associations on December 22, 2013.
The most praiseworthy achievement of the association is to provide its own security for the colony by some of the senior citizens. In the morning as well as in the evening, some of the senior citizens keep a watch by turns against chain-snatching, open defecation and anti-social activities.
Recent attraction
The recent attraction in the colony is installation of Buddha statue and development of road near the Highway as a make-shift walking track. “Being a private layout, we don’t have lung space. Hence, we have been requesting GVMC to convert nearly 2,000 square yards of land as a park,” said former NIO scientist and president of JRNRWA president K.S.R. Murthy. “As the ownership of the land is sub judice, pending its disposal, we wanted ad hoc possession to the association to develop greenery,” he said. The residents want 20 A city bus extended to the colony and shifting of bus stop at Bhooolokamatha temple to a convenient area to decongest traffic. “Its dream colony one would wish to own a flat or independent house to live in peace and tranquillity with easy access to hospitals, shops and malls. Our association is also so pro-active that we have a news bulletin of our own,” said B. Perumallu Raju, an agriculturist and secretary of JRNRWA..
