When Actress Srividya Donated Property Worth Crores For Poor Students Before Death

The late actress Srividya is best known for her work predominantly in Malayalam and Tamil films, along with a few Telugu, Kannada, and Hindi films. Throughout her 40-year career, she appeared in over 800 films. But, did you know this successful actress donated crores of property for the betterment of poor children before her death?

In 2003, actress Srividya underwent a biopsy test following physical problems and was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. She underwent treatment for three years. Srividya executed a will on August 17, 2006, entrusting K. B. Ganesh Kumar, a cine actor and MLA, to register a charitable society to start a music and dance school for efficient students who could not get ample opportunities due to a lack of funds or to give scholarships to such students to continue their studies and to extend financial assistance to deserving ailing artistes.

“I am bequeathing all my properties except some payments mentioned elsewhere in this will. An appropriate body with eminent persons registered under the Charitable Societies Act should be formed, and the realized value of all my assets should be transferred as a nucleus fund,” she said in the will entrusting Mr. Ganesh Kumar to register the society.

According to sources, she had also left five lakh rupees each to her brother’s children and one lakh rupees to her maids in her will, which was executed on August 17, 2006. On October 19, 2006, she had chemotherapy, but cancer had already spread throughout her body, and she died at 19:45 on that day, at the age of 53.

She was cremated with full state honours at the Brahmana Samooham crematorium in Karamana, Thiruvananthapuram.

Talking about her professional life Srividya started her career as a child artist in the 1967 Tamil film Thiruvarutchelvar, alongside legendary actor Sivaji Ganesan. Later, she appeared in Malayalam films with a dance scene in P. Subramaniam’s Kumara Sambhavam (1969) and Dasari Narayana Rao’s Telugu film Tata Manavadu (1972).

Her first notable role was in K. Balachander’s 1971 Tamil film Nootrukku Nooru, in which she played a college student who falls for her professor. Her debut film as a heroine was Delhi to Madras (1972), in which she starred alongside Jaishankar.