JANGAON: Sub-Inspector Gandrathi Satish of the Palakurthy police station in Jangaon district has gone beyond the call of duty, proving that the Telangana Police is people-friendly. With the help of a few others, he built a house for a 73-year-old woman at Lakshminarayanapuram village in Palakurthy mandal.
The monsoon rains in August, 2020 had damaged Bandipelli Rajamma’s mud house to such an extent that it was on the verge of collapse. Satish noticed this and got a house ready in two months. It was his new year’s gift to her.
Speaking to The New Indian Express, he said Rajamma had been living with her disabled son in the dilapidated mud wall house, which had no doors, on the village outskirts. One of its walls had collapsed during the rain and ever since she had been living in deplorable conditions.
Things got worse when her six-year-old granddaughter died four months ago; a snake entered the house and bit her. Rajamma’s daughter-in-law died of an illness a year ago.
Mentally disturbed by one tragedy after the other, Rajamma and her son Ramulu took to alcohol and started to seek alms at market places. They continued to live in the same house, risking their lives.
On coming to know about this, Satish immediately visited Rajamma and got a house built for her in two months.
“When I was told about her hardships, I decided to construct a house for her in the village. It was ready in two months and I shifted the mother and son to the new house,” the SI, who spent `80,000 on building the house, said.
However, Satish’s family supported him in this good deed. “I am happy that could help Rajamma. I bought for her some items for the new house too.”
Meanwhile, the chairperson of the Errabelli Charitable Trust, Errabelli Usha Dayakar Rao, donated rice and three months of groceries to Rajamma, Satish said.
When an The New Indian Express team interacted with Rajamma, she said: “As I belong to the SC community, the villagers do not help us. Even when my granddaughter died, they did not help us. I wonder how the police got to know that I was living in a dilapidated house. Within two months, the house was built and he gifted it to me for New Year's,” she said.