New AP chief secretary Sai Prasad’s act of kindness still inspires Guntur

Guntur: On a warm afternoon in 1996, a young municipal commissioner walked through the bustling lanes of Arundelpet in Guntur. The officer, G Sai Prasad, set out on a routine city inspection. What he did not know was that a chance halt at a row of pavement bookstalls would leave a lasting imprint on his administrative career.Along a crowded main road, a group of street vendors were busy arranging stacks of dog-eared textbooks and tattered novels. Old exam guides, engineering manuals, grammar books and competitive exam material lay spread out under the open sky. Sai Prasad stopped. What began as a casual interaction soon turned into a 2-hour conversation.The vendors, unaware that they were speaking to the city's civic chief, spoke freely about their struggles. They described how they collected discarded books from households, sorted them late into the night, carried heavy bundles to the roadside and spent long hours bargaining with customers. "We do this only to earn our daily bread," one of them told him, explaining how uncertain the business was, especially during monsoon months when rain could wash away both books and income.Born into a middle-class family, Sai Prasad found himself deeply moved. The scene stirred memories of his own student days. While preparing for the civil services examination, he relied heavily on second-hand books, determined not to burden his father, a school teacher, with additional expenses. Those old, underlined and time-worn books played a quiet but decisive role in shaping his future.Standing amid the pavement stalls, he made a quiet resolve — the vendors deserved dignity and stability. Within a short time, Sai Prasad secured approval from the municipal corporation to construct a dedicated shopping complex exclusively for old book sellers. The initiative was unprecedented — perhaps the first such complex in the state reserved solely for second-hand book vendors. Shops were allotted on a nominal lease, offering the sellers protection from eviction and weather vagaries, while also ensuring affordable books for thousands of students. "We never realised we were helping shape so many lives until Sai Prasad encouraged us," recalled T Prasad, one of the shop owners, his voice choking with emotion. "He transformed our lives when he was municipal commissioner."For the vendors, the complex was more than brick and mortar — it was security, identity and respect. Decades later, as Sai Prasad prepares to assume charge as the state's Chief Secretary on Saturday, many in Guntur remember not just an efficient administrator, but a compassionate officer who saw possibility in a pile of old books and hope in the hands that sold them.