AU was established in Vijayawada, before moving to Vizag

Vijayawada: Not many people know that Andhra University, which is celebrating its centenary this year, was first established in Vijayawada before it was moved to Visakhapatnam. The university was set up by the British in 1926 with Cattamanchi Ramalinga Reddy, popularly known as C R Reddy, as its founder vice-chancellor.According to some historians, AU was formed after huge demand from Telugu people in Andhra region, which used to be come under Madras Presidency at the time. Even after the approval for establishment of AU, there were strong demands from Andhra and Rayalaseema regions to set up the university in their area.After many deliberations, it was decided to establish the university in Vijayawada. It was initially housed in one of the Victoria Museum buildings, which has now been renamed as Bapu Museum, with C R Reddy as the founder chairman. According to historian Sai Papineni, though the university office started functioning, academics started only after it was shifted to Visakhapatnam.According to K V N Rao, the author of ‘Andhra Pradesh History', there were some legislative issues to start a study centre in Vijayawada even after the university was started. In 1927, the govt formed a select committee, which gave a report stating that the university should be shifted to Anantapur. However, C R Reddy was in favour of shifting to Waltair in Visakhapatnam as he wanted to develop a residential university model. Finally, in 1929, the university moved to Waltair.Vijayawada lost a great opportunity to become an educational hub for the state more than 100 years ago, and it continues to lose many opportunities even after that. AU gave Visakhapatnam the advantage to emerge as the state's intellectual hub.Not only AU, Vijayawada also lost a great opportunity of becoming the state capital back in 1953. The initial proposal after the formation of Andhra state from Madras state was to have the capital at Vijayawada, but it was shifted to Kurnool, says writer Bandla Madhav Rao. Vijayawada is centrally located and is equidistant for all regions. It was also developed as a major trade centre, but after shifting the capital to Kurnool and then to Hyderabad, the city started losing its charm over the years, he said.