Ponmanidevi, 80

ERODE: Call it charity or a marriage of generosity and public cause, a retired headmistress has donated an acre of land worth Rs 4 crore for constructing government school buildings in Erode district. What is unique in her act is that it follows two similar gestures over two decades in the form of land for building hostels and a donation to upgrade a school.

K Ponmanidevi, 80, wife of late Kumaranataraja Varadappan of Nallagoundampalayam village near Chitthode, started her career as a teacher in a government school in the district in 1964. After serving as a teacher for 32 years, she retired in 1996 as the headmistress of a government high school in Modachur in Gobichettipalayam taluk.

After her husband died of illness 20 years ago, Ponmanidevi moved into her son Mayura Karthikeyan ’s place. However, tragedy struck Karthikeyan, a doctor, when he got electrocuted during the construction of his house in 2001. “After all these happened, I was left alone,” Ponmanidevi said. Sympathising with her condition, her sister Marathal, 77 and her sons started to take care of her.

Ponmanidevi began her charity streak in 2006 when she transferred 25 cents of land to the backward classes welfare department which wanted to construct a hostel for boys and girls. Nine years later, in 2015, she donated Rs 2 lakh to the government when the education department took steps to upgrade Chithode government girls high school as a higher secondary school.

However, the school which started class 11 was hamstrung by lack of space to start class 12. “After coming to know about this, I decided to donate one acre of land to the school to construct additional buildings for class 12 students,” Ponmanidevi added. District collector Prabhakar received the documents of the land from Ponmanidevi on Saturday and asked the educational department officials to take steps for constructing the buildings for class 12 students. The educational department officials confirmed that they would start class 12 classes from this academic year after completing the construction.

When asked about her unending acts of charity for public good, Ponmani quipped, “I want to do good as long as I live.” Meanwhile, the school authorities and the district administration have decided to conduct a function to honour Ponmanidevi in the presence of school education minister K A Sengottaiyan.

