Andhra Pradesh - Kadapa   

Plea to locate Central University in Kadapa

KADAPA: Citizens’ association leaders of the city on Sunday urged Union Minister for Human Resource Development N. Purandareswari to locate the Central University at Kadapa, which has been neglected for centuries, and not establish it at Visakhapatnam.

Association’s honorary chairman P. Subba Reddy, chairman S. Sitaramaiah and general secretary S. Elias Reddy said in a memorandum faxed to the Minister to constitute a committee to study the economic backwardness of Kadapa as well as Visakhapatnam before locating the Central University. Otherwise, the south Andhra Pradesh campus of the university may be located at Kadapa and the north campus at Visakhapatnam, they demanded.

Rayalaseema lost an opportunity to get a university at Anantapur during the British rule, when Prof. Kattamanchi Ramalinga Reddy recommended location of Andhra University at Visakhapatnam as Madras university was far away from it.

While Visakhapatnam has developed over the years, Kadapa had only one degree college between 1952 and 1972, they said.

When Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy proposed to set up the Central University at Kadapa, people of Visakhapatnam launched an agitation, unmindful of Rayalaseema people’s agitation for a steel plant and upgradation of All India Radio at Visakhapatnam, they asserted. Visakhapatnam got a port, naval base, steel plant, Bharat Heavy Plates and Vessels, but Central funds to Kadapa were meagre.

Kadapa is centrally located in Rayalaseema region and is about 250 km from the south coastal backward districts.

The district would also serve backward areas like Bellary, Chintamani, South Arcot in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, they said.

Kadapa was on the Chennai-Mumbai railway line and Kadapa aerodrome was being developed, the citizen association leaders said.

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