Fifty years ago, three stalwarts in the public domain, Smt Durgabai Deshmukh, Dr K.L.Rao and Dr C.Anna Rao, transformed their spirited vision and dream to reality in the shape of Sri Venkateswara College. Fired with the zeal of promoting the cause of education, the college was set up at New Delhi under the benign auspices of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh in 1961.
The foundation stone for the construction of a full-fledged building in the spacious 15 acres provided at Dhaula Kuan was laid on August 20, 1961 appropriately and auspiciously by Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, India's outstanding teacher, scholar and statesman. This year, the College celebrates its golden anniversary with August 2010 ushering in our fiftieth year of pioneering excellence in the field of education.
The TTD is an autonomous organization managing the affairs of Lord Balaji. While it maintains 12 temples and their sub-shrines, it employs about about 14,000 persons and runs charitable and educational institutions throughout the country. Though the initial objective of starting a college in Delhi was to cater to the educational needs of students hailing from the Southern states of India, this TTD institution soon outgrew its regional character. It has now become one of the most sought after co-educational colleges in India.
The college has seen tremendous development since its inception. It began functioning modestly in a school building of the Andhra Education Society at Rouse Avenue, New Delhi with 273 students and 13 staff members and moved into its own spacious buildings in Dhaula Kuan in 1971.
Today, the College has around 3888 students on its rolls, offers more than a score of different courses in the Humanities, Commerce and Science disciplines with 231 teaching and non-teaching staff. Apart from the formal academic courses the college now offers 3 Vocational courses and several short-term add-on courses that serve as significant supplements to the academic profiles of the students. The College also offers 11 Postgraduate Courses for study. Moreover, the dedicated and well-trained academic faculty has been consistently honing the intellectual abilities of students who bring laurels to the college with singular regularity. With the provision of the apposite intellectual and moral matrix, young minds are trained to explore and realize their full potential, ultimately becoming equipped to face the challenges of the new world.
