Tirupati: Statistics Department of SVU celebrates diamond jubilee

Tirupati: The Department of Statistics in Sri Venkateswara University (SVU) has been celebrating diamond jubilee this year as it completes 60 years. It was first established in 1958 as part of the Mathematics department and offered degree courses.

After four years it got separated as an independent department in 1962 with Dr MP Sastry as the founder Professor. It celebrated its golden jubilee in 2012.

Since then it has grown by leaps and bounds and became one of the premier departments in the university and produced several scholars who are now in reputed positions in India and abroad. It has been offering MSc (Statistics) and MSc (Applied Statistics) programmes. Though it started with an intake of 30 students, now 70 students are getting admissions in the two programmes in addition to some payment seats. So far the department has produced 178 PhDs.

The former faculty of the department including Prof C Subbarami Reddy, Prof E Satyanarayana, Prof V Kodanda Rami Reddy, Prof KVS Sarma, Prof P Rajasekhar Reddy and others have contributed immensely to its growth through which it earned a national reputation.

The department has taken the initiative in starting two associations - Indian Society for Probability and Statistics in 1980 and Operational Research Society of India's Tirupati chapter was established in 1999. In the meeting of this OR Society on February 4, 1999, the idea for the time slot darshan in Tirumala was generated and started in March of that year on the occasion of Ugadi. The department has made extensive study on the queue line system implemented by the TTD under a research project.

The honorary secretary of the Statistics alumni association Prof P Rajasekhar Reddy told The Hans India that the diamond jubilee celebrations will be held on a grand scale on September 10, on the occasion of World Statistics Day commemorating the birthday of reputed statistician and Padma Vibhushan awardee Prof C R Rao.

Several stalwarts in the field will be invited to the celebrations and about 800 participants are expected to attend. As a prelude, the logo of the diamond jubilee and website of alumni association were launched on February 17 this year which will be followed by several seminars, workshops and other activities subsequently.

On the occasion of diamond jubilee, the association has been planning to give awards to 60 members of the alumni association. It has been planning to provide a corpus fund to take up various activities in future too. Prof Reddy said that they are also contemplating launching an AP statistics association in September itself to take up various activities.