Velagapudi Ramakrishna Siddhartha Engineering College or VRSEC was the first private institution to offer undergraduate education in engineering in Andhra Pradesh, India and first private college to offer PG Programmes in engineering in Andhra Pradesh in the year 1977. The college was approved to be an autonomous institution by Acharya Nagarjuna University in the year 1977.

Background
Siddhartha Academy of General & Technical Education, better known as Siddhartha Academy, came into being in the year 1975 with a Corpus Fund of Rs.25 lakhs (Rs.2.5 million) through the efforts of 250 life members drawn from different walks of life having a philanthropic bent of mind. This was registered as a Society under the Societies Registration Act in the same year. The main objective of the Academy is to establish and run educational institutions offering education at all levels in the fields of general, technical & professional education. The establishment of Siddhartha Educational Institutions followed by the establishment of other educational institutions in the last 28 years transformed this city into one of the major educational centres. As Indias second largest Railway Junction and as one of the biggest Agro Commodity Trading Centres and as the commercial hub krishna region, Vijayawada has become the second important place in the state after Visakhapatnam. Today, Siddhartha Academy is running 14 Educational Institutions, three colleges offering Intermediate(+2) and Degree (Under Graduate) courses for men and women along with a Post Graduate Centre (Graduate Programmes), two Schools one of which is fully residential, two Engineering colleges, a medical college, a college of Law, a college of Education(B.Ed), a college of Pharmaceutical Sciences and a college of Hotel Management & Catering Technology. All Siddhartha Institutions are duly approved by respective Central and State Governments and other concerned bodies.

Location
The institution is located on 24.05 acres (97,300 m2) of land in Kanuru on the outskirts of Vijayawada city at a distance of about 8 km (5.0 mi) from the city centre, on the Vijayawada-Machilipatnam Highway (NH 65).

Campus
The College has about 5400 students, more than 350 faculty ( Faculty with 88 Ph.D.s & 100 pursuing Ph.D.s )and around 200 technical and supporting staff. Extracurricular opportunities include NCC, NSS, Students Chapters of IEEE, social clubs and sports & games.

Engineering

• Electrical and Electronics Engineering
• Electronics and Communication Engineering
• Civil Engineering
• Computer Science & Engineering
• Information Technology
• Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering

Science & humanities departments

• Chemistry Department
• English Department
• Mathematics Department
• Physics Department

Professional departments

• Computer Applications
• Business Management
• Corporate Interface / T&P Cell
• Library Science Department
• Physical Education

Academics
The college is an autonomous college affiliated to the JNTUK, Kakinada. The college offers various UG and PG academic programs leading to the award of degrees such as B.Tech, M.Tech, MCA and MBA with English as medium of instruction. The programs are conducted on semester system and each semester provides for the minimum of 90 instructional days. The regulations in respect of the academic program of study are prepared and approved by the Academic council, the highest academic body in the college. The curriculum for the program of study is prepared by the respective board of studies and approved by the academic council. After successfully completing the program as per the relevant regulations JNUTK, Kakinada will award the degree.

TIFAC-Core
TIFAC-CORE in Telematics is a collaborative effort of TIFAC (representing government), VR Siddhartha Engineering College and Industries in the domain of Telematics. The centre was launched on 1 February 2009.

Notable Alumni

• Ram Gopal Varma(B.Tech 1979-1983), Indian Filmmaker
• Lagadapati Rajagopal(B.Tech Mechanical 1978-1983) Industrialist and politician

(Source:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velagapudi_Ramakrishna_Siddhartha_Engineering_College)