100 Chittoor villages stretch and bend

Tirupati: The buzzword in Chittoor district nowadays is ‘Yoga Village’. Though it sounds strange, in an interesting development the district administration is determined to develop at least 100 villages as yoga villages in the coming days.

Settipalli village near Tirupati has already been made a yoga village where training in yogasanas has been going on for quite some time. Yoga trainers have been giving training to villagers in the morning and evening daily. As it began yielding good results, district Collector PS Pradyumna has decided to extend it to 100 villages.

To begin with it is proposed to take up the work in 50 panchayats. He coined the word ‘YOGRAMA’ a platform for associations, societies and others to serve society better through teaching yoga to rural India. Even a website has been launched for the purpose.

Though yoga was introduced to the world by India, still the number of people practicing here is less and there are several villages which are new to it. In this backdrop, it was proposed to stress the importance of yoga in one’s daily life and how the ancient knowledge and practice can change one’s overall personality and lead the person to success in all walks of life. As the yoga practice keeps one’s mind and soul sound, it improves the overall health.

As part of this, the Collector proposed to conduct yoga classes at villages where a different lifestyle can be seen compared to urban areas. People in rural areas will have more physical work and need relaxation. To take the concept forward, he discussed it with Yoga Association of Chittoor District (YACD).

As a first step, a pilot project was taken up at Settipalli village near Tirupati where yoga is being trained to all the villagers even now. A total of 300 participants, including students and general public especially women of all ages participated in the free training camp. Out of trained two participants were selected to continue the classes regularly.

The classes were held twice a day in the morning and evening. According to the secretary of YACD S Sreenivasulu Naidu, a positive feedback has been received from the participants, who are ill and undergoing treatments for various diseases and ailments, were very punctual to the camp to get relief through yoga. As the response was overwhelming, the 10-day camp was extended to 30 days and the villagers participated in it with enthusiasm. Now, it is going on without any break.

The Collector held a meeting at Tirupati on October 12 and directed the all associations and officials to take the initiative forward with an aim to achieving complete health. Speaking to The Hans India, the Collector said, “We wanted to increase health consciousness among people which is also a transformation of life. Yoga ‘Gurus’ will take it forward with high values without charging anything for it. All yoga associations will be brought under one umbrella. It can be a trust or start up or something like that.”

With the experiment in the first village, several labourers who were addicted to drinking, had given up the vice. The yoga training will be launched in 50 villages by this month-end. These camps would be utilised for producing more yoga trainers which will make the task of expanding it to all villages much easier. Chief Patron of YACD Dr Koduru Balasubramanyam of Elite Hospitals in Tirupati was taking active initiative in the entire project since the beginning.