About Punganuru

According to one more version, PUNGAVA means a Highly placed (Top cadre). The great poet from Karnataka by name ‘RANNADU’ who translated Mahabharatha into Kannada, the first days Punganur was also called as Temple town, where a minimum of 101 temples were under the patronage of Zamindars, which have been blessed with daily poojas. Huge landed property was dnowed to the temples for their maintenance, Even today, the endowed landed property is with the temples, One of the great living monuments in the town Sri Kalyana Venkataramana Swamy Puskarini (Koneru) build during 16th Century.

This is said to be best of its kind in South India. This was designed and build by Sri Dankanachari son of the Great Architect Jakkanna Chari of Karnataka under the patronage of Zamindars.

One important thing to note is the equal patronage was also extended to the local Muslim population said to be 17% during the 16th century, constructing a Mosque with stone (Now called Stone Mosque) along with the above pushkarini. This stone mosque even today is the biggest mosque in the town, attended by the Muslim devotees for their daily 5 times Namaz. Thousands of acres of land in the Taluk are under cultivation under the tanks built during the Zamindars rule. The present Basava Raja Govt. High School at Punganur was also established by the Zamindar Sri Raja Veera Basava Chikka Royal Yasovantha Bahadurvaru in 1881. This was the third oldest High School in the Dist after S.V. High School , Tirupati and P.C.R. High School, Chittoor.

Venture of its kind is NANNAYYA did in Telugu had declared himself as resident of Punganur. In those days being place for such great pungavas, the town is called as Punganur.

In Sanskrit ‘PUNGAVAM’ denotes a high class ‘Bull’, Punganur is famous for top class breed of cattel and even today Punganur cow, a different breed in the world called to be cheapest milchy breed.

According to other version, in Tamil language ‘pungamaram’ is called for ARBOREA tree (KANUGA) in Telugu. Abundant trees all over the taluk might have been one of the reasons to call this town as PUNGANUR.


Geographically :

Later on, years go by, the population has increased and due to other qualifications, punganur panchayat was up graded to 3rd Grade Municipality on 19-1-1985. It covers an areas of 32-28 sq. kms with population of more than 55,000.


Present conditions in the town :

Roads – Formed during Zamindars rule remain unchanges and even narrowed by encroaching by the hawkers and shopkeepers No pavements. These roads cannot accommodate the present traffic and the inconvenience in this regard cannot be explained, but experience.

The vehicular traffic through the main roads has also been gone up the extreme and especially on the Madras to Bombay Trunk (MBT) Roads it is unbearable, unless minimum of team of policemen not less than 10 are involved in controlling the vehicular traffic, frequent jam of traffic occurs and remains hours for together, hence, a traffic police station exclusively for the control of the traffic is the present need.



The present Basava Raja Govt. High School at Punganur was also established by the Zamindar Sri Raja Veera Basava Chikka Royal Yasovantha Bahadurvaru in 1881. This was the third oldest High School in the Dist after S.V. High School , Tirupati and P.C.R. High School, Chittoor.

There is a school "BASAVA RAJA BOARD HIGH SCHOOL" which was established more than 100 years ago.One of the oldest high schools in the Chittoor district.

It has a very nice and cool climate when compared to other places of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. However, it is still not developed when compared to other places of Chittoor District. The place was famous for its breed of cows. This breed of cows were very small in size, very tame and domesticated. The breed is almost extinct now.