Tirupati: How a temple town became the premier college city of Andhra Pradesh Premium

Tirupati has evolved into a prominent educational hub with state universities, private universities, and institutes of national importance like IIT Tirupati, IISER and IIIT

The prominence of Tirupati as a renowned temple city needs no elaboration. The shrine has been revered for over a millennium and draws millions of devotees every year. However, the temple city has slowly and steadily transformed into a centre of higher learning over the last seventy years. When Andhra Pradesh bifurcated, Tirupati became the largest academic hub in the State, with many prominent educational institutions, including State universities, private universities and institutes of national importance.

While Osmania University in Hyderabad and Andhra University in Visakhapatnam catered to the educational needs of the Telangana and Coastal Andhra regions respectively in neo-independent India, the lack of such a facility was conspicuously felt in Rayalaseema region, which is tucked away from the mainland. Higher education naturally thrived in the then Nizam-ruled Hyderabad state.

As the Chennai – Kolkata national highway passes through the fertile coastal region, it flourished in terms of prosperity and education. The predominantly backward and drought-prone Rayalaseema was left behind. The decision to establish a State university in this region was mooted when this glaring difference was felt in the corridors of power.

In 1954, Sri Venkateswara University was established in Tirupati, giving a much-needed fillip to the region comprising the erstwhile ceded districts. The rural youth of Rayalaseema, who till then had to go either to Chennai, Bengaluru or Hyderabad for higher studies, found a better option.

After thespian N.T. Rama Rao took a plunge into politics and became the State’s Chief Minister within a year, he perceived the need for an all-women university to promote women’s education. He chose Tirupati for the same and laid the foundation stone for Sri Padmavathi Mahila Viswa Vidyalayam (Women’s University) in 1983. Today, it is a leading women-only university in the country and boasts of high-end research and innovation facilities.

Finding the medical facilities grossly insufficient and ineffective in this backward region, it was NTR again who announced the need for a super-specialty hospital on the lines of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to treat serious ailments at affordable rates. Roping in the services of the funds-rich Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), he laid the foundation stone for Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences (SVIMS) in 1986. SVIMS started functioning from the year 1993 and became a State University in 1995.

When agriculture and veterinary sciences coexisted in a comprehensive curriculum under Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU), Hyderabad, the then Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy envisioned establishing separate universities to lay exclusive emphasis on the faculties of agriculture and veterinary science.