Harish Rao lauds Bala Vikasa's exemplary services in Telangana

Hyderabad: Thousands of rural poor men and women descended from hundreds of buses, minivans, jeeps, and autos in the early hours of Monday at Bala Vikasa's Hyderabad Campus in Keesara, Medchal, for the national level annual convention.

They are all beneficiaries of similar community development programmes implemented by BalaVikasa and are now agents of change championing social change as committee members of various village development communities. The purpose of their visit is to meet, discuss and deliberate on the role of building communities for sustainable development. Every year, Bala Vikasa, is a leading non-profit organisation, hosts an annual convention with the committee members on its safe drinking water, women empowerment, sustainable agriculture, quality education, and model communities' programmes to recognize their efforts and inspire them further for greater impact.

Harish Rao, Finance Minister, said, "Bala Vikasa's strong emphasis on the role of people's participation in community development is what inspires me. The same was lacking in several government programs. BalaVikasa, addressed it and piloted several initiatives like setting up overhead tanks, water purification plants, and desilting tanks, renovating government schools successfully in the 90s, and are continuing to do so. This served as the inspiration for the Telangana government to implement flagship schemes like 'Mission Kakatiya' and 'Mission Bhagiratha' on a huge scale." He further added that "We have fulfilled all those previous issues which were a hindrance to the development in the state, and now it is time for Bala Vikasa again to identify new issues and come up with innovative solutions so that we can take them up at a big scale."

Andre Gingras, founder of Bala Vikasa, shared that "It is always important to work together as we can never achieve anything alone. We can mean that we truly love each other, not when we say it orally but when we work together with a vision for the future and share our love with everybody. That is what Bala (wife and founder of Bala Vikasa) and I have done with Bala Vikasa."

As part of the convention, the community leaders were given a session on the key aspects of sustainable community-driven development by T Ravinder Rao, project manager at SERP, Telangana, Hyderabad.

The session focused on creating awareness among communities, especially women, and active community participation which plays a vital role in sustainable community development.