Championing the cause of underprivileged

Musheerabad: A textile trader, Devadas, originally from Musheerabaddistrict, who has settled in Parsigutta here is doing yeoman services for the last 28 years by helping the poor by providing free education to children and running medical camps through his NGO 'Omkara Satsangam'.

He is moving ahead in life with the motto of rescuing the struggling handloom workers.

Devadas told The Hans India that several incidents had prompted him to take up social work.

He was shaken by many poor students lagging behind in studies.

This made him select the students in both government and private schools and fund their education for a year, meeting all expenses.

He provides them scholarships and gives prizes to those securing ranks in SCC and Inter exams at the State level.

The Samaritan also enables such students to pursue higher education. Besides, Devadas conducts health camps for the benefit of the poor, even meeting the cost of medicines.

Of late, he has taken up spiritual activities to educate people about the traditional Indian cultural aspects to keep them away from the influence of the West.

He is also conducting free yoga camps, besides holding Bhagavat Geeta/essay-writing competitions for children.

Devadas did not stop at that; he turned his attention to women by providing them gold 'managala sutrams', 'mettelu' and utensils at their marriages.

His NGO arranges funeral rites for the poor. Recently Devadas organised a nine-day State-level bus yatra to bring to focus the problems of the toiling handloom workers.

He submitted a list of problems faced by such workers and handed over representations to former President Pranab Mukherjee, State minister KTR, Jana Sena leader Pawan Kalyan.

Devadas is promoting the cause of protecting the environment by advocating the use of cloth bags in place of those made of plastic.