Albert Victor Road to Alur Victor Road

The IT capital, then Bangalore is now known as Bengaluru, which has many old street names that the citizens know of but do not know how it came about to be. The city has various street names which are casually spoken about amongst the citizens. As you travel in and around Bengaluru there are names such as Lavelle Road, Nittoor Srinivasa Rao Road, Ali Asker Road, Monotype Road, Albert Victor Road, etc. But not many of us know how these names came about to be. In this article, you will find out how Albert Victor Road was named and is now known as A.V Road.

Looking at one such name, Albert Victor Road is present in Chamrajpet. Chamrajpet has its history as to why the name came about. But let us not delve into the history of Chamrajpet. Albert Victor Road, despite being called A.V Road now has little effect on the people they are used to calling it by the original name. A V Road is the first extension road created in the year 1892 in the area of old Pete. The name of the road comes after the Prince of Wales, Albert Victor. He decided to visit Bengaluru and lay the foundation for the glass house in Lalbagh.

How did the name come about?

Moona said in a conversation with The Economic Times, “Even though the British transferred administrative powers to the Mysore maharaja in 1881, they still had a strong hold over important decisions. So, when the first extension to the Pete was formed barely four years after the foundation stone for the Glass House was laid, they decided to name it after Albert Victor as a mark of respect." It was iterated that when there were multiple re-naming attempts in progress for the city the only point that was kept in mind were the initials of the name which were A.V but renamed to Alur Venkat Road in the year 1960. The locals residing in the area as well as others have adopted the new name but the official records present with the BBMP still refer to it as Albert Victor Road.