 He won the National Film Award for Best Lyrics in the year 2003 for his song "Nenu Saitham" in the movie Tagore (2003), it is based on Sri Sri's 'Nenu Saitham' from Mahaprasthanam.He is the third writer to win this award after Sri Sri for his "Telugu veera levaraa" in Alluri Sitaramaraju and Veturi for his "Raalipoye puvva neeku ragaalenduke" in "Matrudevobhava".He wrote over 2200 songs for 1250 movies and 2500 private songs till 2017.