HYDERABAD: Actor Akkineni Nagarjuna adopted 1,080 acres of forest land in Chengicherla on Thursday and laid the foundation for an urban park which will be named after his late father Akkineni Nageswara Rao. The actor and his family donated Rs 2 crore for the cause under the Telangana Chief Minister’s Hairtha Nidhi fund.
The Chengicharla forest block is the Uppal-Medipally area on the Hyderabad-Warangal Highway. Amongst the dense urbanisation, there are around 1,682 acre of forest land of which 1,080 have been adopted by Nagarjuna. The foundation stone for this urban park was laid by the actor and his family along with MP J Santosh Kumar.
The key attraction in this upcoming forest park would be four large Boab trees which are crowd-pullers. The forest department plans on planting 2 lakh plants between the gaps of these four trees and creating a picnic spot that will bring much needed green respite for east Hyderabad.
“It was during the previous season of Big Boss that I had a discussion with MP Santosh Kumar about adopting forest land and declared I would be doing so. I am immensely happy to come forward and support this cause,” said Nagarjuna.
Appreciating Nagarjuna, Santosh Kumar also had the Akkineni family plant saplings in the forest patch and said such cooperative action is helping Hyderabad to improve its a connection with nature. “No other city has the advantage like Hyderabad as this city has nearly 1.5 lakh acres of forest land around it which will be protected, preserved and developed as part of Green India Challenge,” said Kumar.
Previously, actor Prabhas had adopted 1,650 acres of land in Khajipally forest area and Pharma company Hetero Drugs took up 2,543 acres in Mambapur forest area on Narasapur road. Santosh Kumar himself adopted 2,042 acres in Keesara to develop an eco-park.