VIZIANAGARAM: Alumni of the government residential school (Gurukul) at Bobbili have taken up development of their alma mater under the initiative ‘Badi Runam Teerchukundam’.About 1,500-odd students of the school belonging to 35 batches have started contributing their mite to development of amenities in the Gurukul. They have already spent about Rs 60 lakh on construction of a dormitory and a cultural stage, drinking water facility, electrification, solar system and furniture.
The alumni have also been extending aid to their schoolmates, who are facing financial problems and suffering from ill-health. The then Chief Minister of erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh NT Rama Rao established the Gurukul at Bobbili in 1983. At least 2,500 students have passed out from the school in the past three-and-a half decades at the rate of 72 students per batch since 1986.
A majority of them are holding key posts now. They include three IAS officers, 25 doctors, hundreds of teachers, engineers, software engineers, businessmen, state government employees, Central staff and armed personnel. Though the residential school has produced several distinguished students, it did not have proper amenities until 2010. The successive governments had failed to take up renovation of dilapidated school buildings.
At that time, Y Jogi Naidu, an old student of the 1992 SSC batch, visited the school to take his study certificate. Moved by the lack of basic amenities in the Gurukul, Jogi Naidu, a government teacher, set up the alumni association to develop the school without waiting for the government to take up its renovation.
Jogi Naidu, who is the president of Alumni Association, said, “I was shocked to see the school buildings in a dilapidated state. After discussing the issue with my old schoolmates, we set up the Alumni Association to develop our alma mater as a gratitude to it.”
To establish the Alumni Association, Jogi Naidu collected information of two to three old students from each batch and activated all of them with the help of school teachers. The Alumni Association celebrated the silver jubilee of the school in November 2010 and from then onwards took up development of the Gurukul with its contributions. The association recently felicitated all the retired school teachers to express their gratitude to them for their success in life. “About 25 old students who are rendering yeomen service as doctors during the Covid-19 pandemic were also felicitated by the association,” he said.
The gesture of alumni has motivated the new batches of the school to excel in studies. A doctor from Vizianagaram, who is an alumnus, had announced a cash prize of Rs 10,000 to the school topper on behalf of the Alumni Association. Another alumnus, M Kurmarao, an IAS officer of Karnataka cadre, had sponsored a solar system worth Rs 3 lakh, which was inaugurated at the school on November 2.