NEW YORK: New York Tamil Sangam has joined hands with movie director Susi Ganeshan’s Kandaswami Foundation to help adopt villages in Tamil Nadu to provide basic amenities such as roads, street lights, repairs to dilapidated schools, drinking water and sewerage connection.

At a function held recently at Hotel Madras Woodlands in Hicksville, Ganeshan made a presentation of the plans of the foundation to adopt atleast 100 villages in 2010. Kanthaswami Foundation , a spin off from his latest Tamil box office hit Kanthaswami, set up by Susi Ganeshan has so far adopted 32 villages in Tamil Nadu so far providing the villagers roads, potable drinking water, repairs to schools to name a few basic amenities.

R. Srinivasaraghavan, president of Savin Engineeers, Pleasantville, Long Island, announced that he would adopt three villages and urged other members to give a helping hand to the foundation. More members expressed their willingness to adopt a village and said they would visit the villages and take a final call.

Thanking the members of the Sangam for their spontaneous response, Susi Ganeshan, said it cost $5000 to adopt a village and to make a positive change in the life of people still wallowing in poverty.

“We may see Benz and BMWs on the streets of Chennai and Coimbatore but villagers have no access to roads and have to trudge miles be it to attend schools or to deliver a baby. Their conditions are pitiable and needs to be improved,” he said.

 “I come from a middle class family and did not have money to pay my college fees. I know the pain of poverty and the value of every rupee. I want to make a positive change in the lives of poor people and hence I created the trust to build schools, lay roads, and provide potable drinking water and sanitation. Its pathetic that even after 62 years of independence, Indian villages have remained the same with people wallowing in squalor and illiteracy,” he said. Seeing his initiative, many corporates and philanthropists in India are joining hands with him to make his dream come true.

An engineer by profession and a graduate of the prestigious Madras Institute of Technology (MIT), Ganeshan was a former journalist at Ananda Vikatan and in that capacity had traveled extensively in villages. Kanthaswami was a roaring box office hit. The Tamil Nadu government has now come up with a matching grant rupee for rupee collected by the trust to improve the living conditions of villages. He plans to take the project to neighboring Andhra Pradesh with his Telugu version of Kanthaswami. It has snowballed into a mass movement now.

Ganeshan met with leaders of Indian community in the tri-state area to seek their support. ”I appeal to all associations in the US to follow our model to alleviate poverty and we are willing to work with you. We can take you on a tour of villages that are crying for basic amenities,” he said. The World Bank has appreciated the model and the trust has written to President Obama to donate even a small fraction of the Nobel Prize money to the foundation. Dr. Sundaram of New Jersey Tamil Sangam appreciated the efforts of Ganeshan. Prakaash M Swami, secretary of New York Tamil Sangam introduced Susi Ganeshan and Devaraj Vijayakumar, treasurer, proposed a vote of thanks.