Noted skater Rana Uppalapati, who has taken up the task of covering the 6,000-km Golden Quadrilateral to create awareness and raise money for girl child education, reached Visakhapatnam on Thursday.

The ‘Indian Golden Quadrilateral’ programme, being funded by the Titan Company Limited in collaboration with the Tata Group, was flagged off at Hosur in Karnataka on September 5 and he had so far covered Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha.

The 37-year-old skater, who covered about 4,500 km and reached his home town after 70 days, was given a warm welcome by the denizens, skaters and friends, at the VUDA Children’s Arena in Siripuram.

Money mobilised so far

He is accompanied by a six-member logistic team, who travel in a car ahead.

“In the last 70 days, we have interacted with at least 5 lakh people across various parts of the country and raised ₹3.60 crore, which would be enough for educating close to 10,000 girls. But our target is to provide education for 25,000 girls and I am sure in the next 30 days, we would achieve it,” Mr. Rana Uppalapati said.

Earlier he undertook two such skating trips to create awareness on health issues.

The longest trip he had taken up was from Vizag to Chennai, around 800 km.

Covering 6,000 km now was definitely a tough task, “but it will be a milestone if I can achieve it,” he said.

“In the first 30 days, due to bad roads, high temperature and a few other hassles, we would cover around 12 km per day, starting at 4 am. But later we started to cover close to 50 to 60 km, on a daily basis. Today, I skated from Tagarapuvalasa to Lankapalem, covering almost 67 km in just two and half hours. When we show people the amount of difficulty involved in our journey, the message reaches in a strong way,” said Mr. Uppalapati.

He said his journey would end by meeting kids, communities and other people in schools, colleges, meeting halls etc every day.

“Apart from educating underprivileged girl children, we are also creating awareness among children on safety, especially on good touch and bad touch.”

The mission is expected to end on December 18 at Hosur. A grand event is being planned in Bengaluru.

Managing Director of the Titan Company Bhaskar Bhat, AVP & Head, Corporate Sustainability Titan NE Sridhar, family members, city-based skaters, athletes and others were present.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Andhra Pradesh / by Harish Gilai / Visakhapatnam – November 22nd, 2018