Osmania varsity students bristle as KCR eyes campus land

The students of Osmania University (OU) here played a key role at all stages of the separate Telangana agitation. They bore the brunt of police lathi-charge and lost out on academics to prevail on the Congress government at the Centre to concede to their demand for a separate State.

With Telangana becoming the 29th State on June 2, 2014 and K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), chief of the Telangana Rastra Samithi (TRS) taking over as its first Chief Minister, the students hoped for good times, with plentiful jobs, more funds and facilities.

A year after, the picture is not very rosy. They have landed an increased budgetary allocation, and a couple of student leaders have became legislators, but jobs are hardly coming their way.

Even as they come to terms with ground realities — as the economy, industry and investments are not picking up — KCR has thrown a bombshell. He jas announced plans to acquire 11 acres of campus land from the University to provide housing for the poor.

The decision stirred a hornet’s nest, as the conspicuous shrinking of the once sprawling campus as well as the declining stock of the University are telling on its growth.

Politically, there is no love lost between the TRS and the students. During the separate statehood struggle, each followed its own path. There was, however, some convergence on the promises of jobs and better opportunities for locals in education.

KCR is not the first to eye the land of academic institutions. Marri Channa Reddy, a tall leader of the Telangana movement of 1969-70 (where the OU again played a huge role) and twice CM of combined AP, made an unsuccessful attempt in 1978. To please his alma mater Gandhi Medical College, he announced that the playground of the neighbouring Nizam College (over 125 years old now) may be acquired. The students of the famous college beat back the proposal.

Over the decades the OU has parted with hundreds of acres of land. Some of it went to internationally recognised institutions such as the National Institute of Nutrition, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology and National Geophysical Research Institute.

Similarly, the earlier State government housed its Archives and Research Centre, English and Foreign Languages University, Regional Centre for Urban Studies and the Centre for Indian Ocean Studies, among others.

However, allegations of land being given off to commercial establishments and some powerful individuals persist.

According to B Satyanarayan, President of the OU Teachers Association, this is the first time that a CM is interfering in land allocaiton.

“We want to oppose it as it can become a precedent. At least two distinguished committees which went into land requests earlier recommended not leasing land to anyone because of the long-term needs of the University. Since 1984 no land has been allocated to anybody,” he said.

Founded in 1918 by Nawab Osman Ali, the seventh Nizam of Hyderabad State, on an area of 2,400 acres, OU is the third oldest university in South India. Its illustrious alumni list includes former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao; former Chief Ministers SB Chavan, Dharam Singh and Kiran Reddy; former Union ministers S Jaipal Reddy, Shivaji Rao Patil and Ch Vidyasagar Rao (present Maharashtra Governor); and corporate honchos such as Shantanu Narayen of Adobe Systems, K Satish Reddy of Dr Reddy's Laboratories and B Pardhasaradhi Reddy of Hetero Drugs.

OU’s architecturally renowned buildings like the Arts College (Indo-Sarasenic), picturesque gardens, and highly rated departments of engineering, astronomy, journalism, geophysics, genetics, management, law and arts have sustained its popularity for long.

For OU, the present situation hardly allows this luxury. Now located over a 1,400-acre campus, it is bursting at its seams, being one of the largest affiliating varsities with over 3 lakh students and 5,000 faculty members.

The students want State government jobs, and these have been elusive so far. With KCR belying their hopes and further eyeing ‘their’ land, the students may well go back to what they have done best in recent times — agitating.

They have found support from C Kodandaram, a leader of the Political Joint Action Committee of the Telangana struggle, who has opposed KCR’s move and demanded that jobs and better education be the latter’s focus.