Sri Venkateswara Agricultural College celebrates diamond jubilee
The students of the first batch of Sri Venkateswara Agricultural College (SVAC), now septuagenarians, attend the diamond jubilee celebrations of the college, held in Tirupati on Sunday.
The alumni recalled that the foundation stone for the college building was laid in October 1961 by the then Minister for Agriculture Nukala Ramachandra Reddy, after which the college was established on sprawling 360 acres nestling under the shadow of Tirumala hills. The college was initially set up with ₹4 lakh donated by the TTS and ₹2 lakh donated by a Bombay-based philanthropist Ramakrishna Raju.
They remembered that the classes were initially conducted in a makeshift room in the adjoining SV University campus in 1962. The subjects offered were Agronomy, Botany, Chemistry, Entomology, Engineering and Animal Husbandry before the imposing edifice was formally inaugurated by the then Vice-President of India V.V. Giri.
Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU) Vice-Chancellor A. Vishnuvardhan Reddy recalled the college standing in the eleventh position among its peers at the national level and announced to develop it as a ‘model institution’. Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) former Director-General Rajendra Singh Paroda, who attended as the chief guest, stressed upskilling the rural people in modern skills to address several issues plaguing the country. He also hinted at the need to attract youth into agriculture and turn the farmers into entrepreneurs.
SVAC Associate Dean R.P. Vasanthi read out the achievements of the college in its sixty years of existence while the guests released a souvenir and the diamond jubilee logo.
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