Date:01/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/01/stories/2008030156290600.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Allotment of SVU lands for Vedic varsity opposed

Special Correspondent

Tirupati: The students wing of the BJP -- Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) – on Friday joined issue with the TTD for taking away a chunk of land from the SVU campus and allotting it to the Vedic University coming up near Alipiri.

It may be recalled that the TTD had over five decades ago given on long lease about 1,000 acres to help government set up the SVU campus.

The students, under the banner of the ABVP, boycotted classes and staged a dharna in front of the administrative building. The union leaders pointed out that it was not the first time that the TTD was taking away chunks of land already allotted to the SVU on a long lease to meet its own needs. They cited in this connection the campus lands allotted in the past to several non-university purposes such as the construction of quarters to the doctors and the staff working in the TTD’s superspeciality hospital-- SVIMS, setting up of Science Centre, Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan and now the Vedic University.

Though the SVU has (or had) a 1000-acre campus-- thanks to the munificence of the TTD, some stretches of land especially in the area skirting the ghat road are still remaining unused.

The SVU insists that though the lands were now unused, it has reserved them for its future expansion work. But, it is from this peripheral stretches that the TTD has taken some bits of pieces of unused lands from the SVU for the above institutions .