Doodi Bhadraiah will perhaps be the first person from a poor tribal community in the country to climb Mount Everest, if all goes well. Mr. Bhadraiah is from the Koya community of Kothapalli village in Chinturu mandal that was recently merged into the East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh from Khammam in Telangana.
Mr. Bhadraiah, along with Konda Sahadev, a taekwondo coach, will start from Hyderabad on April 7. The expedition is scheduled to conclude on May 23.
The road to becoming part of a two-member team was not easy for Mr. Bhadraiah.
Last year, he visited the rock-climbing school at Bhuvanagiri in the Nalgonda district of Telangana, and met eight-times Arjuna Award winner and coach B. Sekhar Babu.
The latter responded favourably to his plea to admit him in a 23-member team. After a training session at Bhuvanagiri fort, Mr. Bhadraiah emerged as one of the two persons selected to climb the Everest. After completing an industrial training programme from Kothagudem College, he worked for the Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corporation plant near Mothugudem on contract basis. “My parents are farm labour. Our habitations, except for a few colonies, will soon submerge in the Polavaram project” he said.
On February 21, Mr. Bhadraiah lost all his academic certificates in a fire accident.
K.V.N. Chakradhara Babu, ITDA (Integrated Tribal Development Agency) Project Officer, helped Mr. Bhadraiah get his passport and the financial support for the expedition .