Four more students of the Andhra Pradesh Social Welfare Residential School scaled Mt. Everest on Monday.
The four intermediate students are Sandhya Bhai Vadithe of Guntur, Hari Prasad Ganugapenta of Kadapa district, Sundar Raju Repalle of Kurnool District and Rani Boddu of West Godavari district.
All the four are studying second year intermediate in the APSW Residential schools. Sandhya Bhai’s parents, Mangya Naik and Hunik Bai, and Sundar Raju’s parents, Rajasekhar and Susheelamma, are farmers. Hari Prasad is the son of Narasaiah and Ranu Boddu is the daughter of Davidhu and Nagamani. Their parents are daily labourers in their villages.
On May 13, six persons from the State set history as the first batch to scale the world’s highest peak. They were G. Suresh Babu of Kurnool district, V. Krishna Rao of Srikakulam and K. Durga Rao of East Godavari district, Bharat Thammineni of Kurnool, Nagaraju Sundarana and Satya Rao of Visakhapatnam.
Six days ago, four more—Mothukuri Dharma Teja from Sriramavaram village, Chenna Rao Gajavalli from T. Narsapuram village, both in West Godavari district, Eeswar Seelam from Davupalli village in Guntur district and Bodla Sagar, a native of Godabavalana village in Vizianagaram district—did so.
So far 14 of the 19 persons, including students trained and sponsored by both the departments had successfully scaled the peak as part of the programme sponsored by the Social Welfare Department and the Youth Services wing.
Parvathi of Youth Services and Naveen and Ashok of social welfare institutions did not succeed due to various reasons. Two others dropped midway due to health issues. Another woman, Chunduri Raji Venkat, mother of a five-year-old son, had to return to the camp 3 after scaling 8,700 metres. Ms. Raji of Kurnool will try to reach the summit depending on the weather condition before May 28 when monsoon begins.
