Hero Nagarjuna lays foundation stone of Akkineni Nageswara Rao Urban Forest Park at Chengicherla forest area
The park would be useful for people residing in Medipally to Chengicherla, Cherlapally, and ECIL areas.
Senior Tollywood actor hero Nagarjuna, keeping his promise made recently, on Thursday announced that he is adopting 1,080 acres of forestland and will develop an urban park at Chengicherla forest area on the outskirts of Hyderabad in his father Akkineni Nageswara Rao’s name.
Nagarjuna laid foundation of the urban forest on the occasion of birthday of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao as part of the Green India Challenge launched by Rajya Sabha MP Joginipally Santosh Kumar. The popular actor participated in the program along with his family members — wife Akkineni Amala, sons Naga Chaitanya and Nikhil and others.
For the development of forest region, Nagarjuna donated Rs 2 crore to the Haritha Nidhi instituted by the CM. Speaking on occasion, Nagarjuna said MP Santosh Kumar had launched Green India Challenge program to change the environment in the state and country for eco-friendly and a clean environment. He said he had participated in the program and planted several saplings.
In the last Big Boss season grand finale, Nagarjuna said he discussed the adoption of forestland issue with Santosh Kumar and declared on the dais that he would adopt forestland. He said he felt happy that he had laid the foundation stone for the Urban Forest Park as announced by him in the program. This forest area park would immensely help the people living in the colonies around it.
MP Santosh Kumar appreciated Nagarjuna for coming forward to take part in the Green India Challenge program. The MP announced that along with the setting up of Urban Park in the name of Akkineni Nageswara Rao, in the vacant areas one-lakh saplings will be planted beginning today. He said no other city had the advantage Hyderabad has like availability of forest areas around it and above 1.50 lakh acres of forest land around Hyderabad would be protected, preserved and developed as part of the Green India Challenge program.
The MP welcomed businessmen, entrepreneurs and organizations to take part in this social responsibility.
Special Chief Secretary (Forests) Ms Shanta Kumari, PCCF Ms R. Shobha, PCCF (SF) RM Dobrial, Rachakonda Police Commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat, Hyderabad Chief Conservator MJ Akbar, Medchel Forest Officer Venkateswarlu, GIC co-founder Raghava, and Akkineni family members Ms Supriya Yarlagadda, Sumanth, Sushant, Ms Naga Suseela, Ms Laxmi Sahitya, Ms Saroja, Venkata Narayana Rao, Ms Jyotsna, Ms Anupama, Aditya, Ms Sangeeta, Ms Sagarika and others participated.
Chengicherla Forest Block is in Uppal-Medipally area on Hyderabad-Warangal highway and among the urbanization there is 1,682 acres of forestland. Nagarjuna took 1,000 acres on adoption. An urban park will be developed in part of the land and in the rest revival of the forest areas will be taken up.
Officials said that this park would be useful for people residing in Medipally to Chengicherla, Cherlapally, and ECIL areas.
Under the leadership of Santosh Kumar and inspiration from the Green India Challenge, three forest blocks were taken on adoption and Nagarjuna took the fourth block. In the three areas, setting up an urban park, reviving the forest area works are going on.
MP Santosh Kumar himself has adopted 2,042 acres in Keesara and developing an eco-park. Hero Prabhas took 1,650 acres in the Khajipally forest area and pharma giant Hetero Drugs has taken 2,543 acres in the Mambapur forest area on Narsapur road and are developing as eco-friendly areas.
