The newly appointed Vice-Chancellor of Potti Sriramulu Telugu University (PSTU), Elluri Siva Reddy, has said that his top priority would be to encourage and strengthen the culture and language courses for which the university was established, and contribute to the growth of Telugu language.

Prof. Reddy, who assumed the office on Tuesday, told reporters that arts, humanities and language streams were equally important for the development of society along with management and IT related courses, and the varsity was committed to encourage them. “We have been doing some good work in this regards and it will continue,” he said.

‘Masters in Translation'

He said translation work was emerging as a new area of interest and the varsity would introduce a Masters course soon and work with the National Translation Mission for encouraging studies as well as research in the field. “Since Telugu has already received classical language status, a centre for Classical Languages Studies will be set up soon and we will ask the government to set up the centre at the university itself,” he said.

Expressing concern over the shortage of funds, Prof. Reddy said the varsity needs about Rs. 20 crore to take up the activities it has planned but it's falling short of funds. This year only Rs. 12 core were allocated in the State budget while the salary component was to the tune of Rs.17 crore. “We will seek more funds from the government.”