Sri Kalahastheeswara Institute of Technology (SKIT), launched amid much hype and hoopla by Sri Kalahastheeswara Swamy Devasthanams, is now a closed chapter.
The college was built in 1998 in the temple town of Srikalahasti, as the then legislator Bojjala Gopalakrishna Reddy contemplated to offer quality engineering education to the aspiring youth of rural areas.
As the craze for engineering was at its peak, the move turned out to be an instant hit among the two dozen villages scattered around Srikalahasti. Pursuing ‘dollar dreams’, most students of the first batch had discussed HiTec City, Y2K problem and Silicon Valley, which were the ‘in thing’ in the late 90s.
SKIT was rated among the top in combined Andhra Pradesh, as many of today’s top ranking colleges were not even born then. After raking in the moolah in its first decade, the college had to face several stumbling blocks from around 2010.
Though political interference at various levels was blamed for its administration going haywire, there was no improvement even after the Endowments Department started wielding total control. The officers, busy as they were with handling the affairs of the world famous Saivite temple, apparently lost focus of the college.
It is said that the governing body had not met even once during 2014-2017, making things slip out of the hand.
All attempts to give a facelift to the college failed and the situation started going from bad to worse, as could be seen from the year-on-year drop in admissions, forcing the maintenance expenditure to be met from the temple’s earnings. Today, the non-functional college has 30 students and over 120 employees, including non-teaching staff. In fact, the attempts to hand over the college to private managements also failed.
“Good days are ahead for its takeover, as we are in talks with a prominent institution”, says Srikalahasti MLA B.Madhusudhan Reddy, who hopes to revive the college.
However, attempts are being made to get rid of all the existing staff, severing their two decades of association. As most of them are in their late 40s and early 50s, they stare at a bleak future.
