Vidya Balan presents Rs 10 lakhs for welfare of Bengali technicians

Vidya Balan, who last played Vidya (Bidya) Bagchi in Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani cannot forget her connect with the City of Joy, where major parts of the film was shot including the underground Metro. Just day-before yesterday, when the talented actress was in Kolkata to inaugurate the durga puja celebrations of Sribhumi Sporting Club, she got in touch with the personnel of the Eastern India Cinetel Welfare Trust and presented a cheque of Rs 10 lakh for the welfare of the technicians attached to the trust. “It so happened that while Vidya was shooting in the city with Sujoy Ghosh a year and a half ago, we approached and introduced our trust to her. We told her that this 14-year old trust has been looking after the out-of-work and sick technicians when it presents Rs 1000 to 60 such people every year. On an annual basis, we organize health and eye camps for the needy,” said a trustee of the trust Soumen Singharoy. The actress must have kept up all that in mind. So, on her recent visit, she presented the cheque to our chairman Soumitra Chatterjee. “Since some time, we have been thinking of having an old home but were short of funds. Now, with Vidya’s generous gift, our dreams of the old home will be realized,” added Singharoy. Vidya Balan’s connect with Bengali culture started with the 2003 film Bhalo Theko, her debut film, directed by Gautam Haldar. She also excelled herself in Parineeta in which she starred opposite Saif Ali Khan.