VIJAYAWADA: Being grateful to society is not enough. You have to repay the gratitude to society for making you what you are today. This is the quintessence of the philosophy of Swarna Bharat Trust, founded at Nellore in 2001 by M Venkaiah Naidu who is now Union Minister for Urban Development and eight of his friends.
Making Swarna Bharat's reach more widespread, Vijayawada chapter will come into existence on Sunday. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will be the chief guest at a function being organised at Atkur near Vijayawada airport. It has come up in an area of 80,000 sq ft. Venkaiah Naidu will also be taking part in the ceremony. The Vijayawada chapter is headed by president Mandava Prabhakara Rao and secretary Chukkapalli Ramakrishna Prasad. The local trustees are K Srinivas (Health Minister), G. Viswanath and P. Sumant. The chapter's director is D. Paradesi.
Swarna Bharat Managing Trustee and Venkaiah's Naidu's daughter Deepa Venkat said that her father drew inspiration from the sayings of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela for creation of the trust. Gandhi's great and inspiring quote - the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others and Nelson Mandela's observation - what counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of life we lead, she said in a press release.
The joy of giving back to society a part of what it gave to you and of what it made you, is immeasurable. "It instills in oneself a sense of pride and self-worth. Pandit Deen Dayal's notion of Anthyodaya - serving or benefiting the last man in the queue has always been a great and perennial source of inspiration for my father, who has all through his live manifested it in his thoughts and deeds," she said.
According to her, in the last one and half decade of its existence, the Trust has grown into a well-known service oriented organization in Andhra Pradesh, thanks to the founder trustees, patrons and a number of supporters, sponsors and volunteers.
The Trust's motto is Gandhi's dictum "back to villages. "The underlying aim is to improve rural India and the objective is also to preserve and propagate Indian culture and values. The target groups are rural youth, women and farmers," Deepa Venkat said.