Sri Venkateswara College
Sri Venkateswara College is a co-ed & constituent college of the University of Delhi established in 1961 in New Delhi, India., considered as one of the best colleges in the country for sciences, commerce and humanities. It is being managed by Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams & UGC and awards degrees under the purview of the university of Delhi and offer courses both at the undergraduate level and the postgraduate level. Vocational courses and short-term add-on courses that serve as significant supplement to the academic profiles of the students are offered by the college. Admissions are done purely based on the merit and as per the Delhi University norms.
Ranking
It is ranked 14th across india by National Institutional Ranking Framework in 2020.History
Founded under the auspices of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams Trust, as a result of the efforts of Durgabai Deshmukh, who was a member of the constituent assembly of India and founder of the Andhra Education Society in Delhi. She approached K. L. Rao and C. Anna Rao, after realising the acute shortage of a degree-level college in the city.The primary objective of the college was to cater to the education needs of students from South India. It soon outgrew its regional characteristics and has now become one of the most sought after co-educational colleges of the University.
Foundation
The college started up in 1961 in a school building of the Andhra Education Society in Rouse Avenue, New Delhi, with 271 students and 13 faculty members. The foundation stone of the present campus was laid on 20 August 1961 by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, former president of India. The college moved into its newly constructed campus at Dhaula Kuan, New Delhi, on 25 August 1971. In August 2010, the college celebrated its golden anniversary ushering in the fiftieth year of pioneering excellence in the field of education.Evolution
Sri Venkateswara College came into being through the vision of Durgabai Deshmukh, K. L. Rao and C. Anna Rao in 1961. Initially starting off as a BA pass college, it began by offering B.A. courses in Telugu, Tamil, Hindi and Sanskrit. Within few years of acquiring its new campus, and led by its principal V Krishnamoorthy, the college introduced honours courses in arts and science. In 1973 the University of Delhi recognised it as one of its constituent colleges, paving the way for future expansion. From its beginning with just language courses, the college now has academic departments in other disciplines: Economics, Mathematics and Statistics, English, Political Science, History, Botany, and Zoology. The Department of Chemistry which initially provided chemistry papers for other departments was permitted to conduct its own honours course in 1983. Honours courses in Physics, Electronics, and Biochemistry began. It is a fairly young college in comparison to others of the university which provide honours courses.Infrastructure developments were undertaken starting from 2006 using fund accrued under CPE, Star College, OBC expansion fund, Golden Jubilee fund and TTD grants. The status of College with Potential for Excellence and Star College were awarded; CPE was withdrawn in 2011 because of lack of NAAC accredition which is absent in all of Delhi colleges. Pass courses in BA, BSc, BCom, Life Science, Biological Science and Honours in Tamil and Telugu were discontinued in 2013.
Administration
The college was established and is run by Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, a board which organizes the temple of Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh. Public involvement in the affairs of the college is through nomination of people from various walks of public life to its Governing Body as per provisions of statute 30 of Delhi University Act, 1922. Management of various activities of the college is supervised by the Principal through designated committees. Monitoring of the affairs of the college is done by its Governing Body, Academic Council & Executive Council of the University of Delhi.The Governing Body of the college consist of the following:
- Ten members nominated by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, one amongst them elected as chairman and another as treasurer.
- The principal of the college member-secretary.
- Two members from the university.
- Two members of the teaching staff by rotation according to seniority,
Principals
- Dr. V Krishanamoorthy 1973-1991
- Dr. A Sankara Reddy 1994-2009.
- Dr. P Hemalatha Reddy 2009–2020
- Dr. S Venkata Kumar 2020–present
Courses offered
Undergraduate courses
- B.A. Economics
- B.A. English
- B.A. Hindi
- B.A. History
- B.A. Political Science
- B.A. Sanskrit
- B.A. Sociology
- B.A. Programme
- B. Com. Programme
- B. Com.
- B. Sc. Life Sciences
- B. Sc. Bio-Chemistry
- B. Sc. Botany
- B. Sc. Chemistry
- B. Sc. Electronics
- B. Sc. Mathematics
- B. Sc. Physics
- B. Sc. Statistics
- B. Sc. Zoology
- B. Sc. Biological Sciences
Post Graduate Courses
- M.A. English
- M.A. Sanskrit
- M.A. History
- M.A./M.Sc Mathematics
- M.A./M.Sc Statistics
- M.Sc Botany
- M.Sc Chemistry
- M.Sc Physics
- M.Sc Zoology
Add-on courses
- Certificate Programme in Bioinformatics & Computational Biology
- One Year Post-Graduate Diploma in Bio-Chemical & Molecular Technology
- One Year Postgraduate Certificate Course in Tourism and Travel Management
- One Year Certificate Course in German Language
- One Year Diploma in German Language
- One Year Advance Diploma in German Language
- One Year Certificate Course in French Language
- One Year Certificate Course in Italian Language
- One Year Certificate Course in Russian Language
- One Year Certificate Course in Spanish Language
Facilities
- Hostel: Since 2008, Sri Venkateswara College has an on-campus hostel consisting of two blocks, one each for boys and girls to accommodate 144 students.
- The Bioinformatics Center was established in 2006 to promote biology teaching through bioinformatics. It was funded initially by the Department of Biotechnology under the Biotechnology Information System program. It is the first Bioinformatics Center established in the University of Delhi and North India for the benefit of undergraduate students.
- The college has facilities for sports. The cricket field in the college campus has host district level competitions. Modern and better lawn tennis and basketball facilities are under construction.
- An auditorium with a seating capacity of 800.
- A fully air-conditioned and well equipped state of the art audio-visual Seminar Hall with a seating capacity of 250 students
- The college has a well stocked library of over 1,20,000 books and is subscribed to over 75 journals and periodicals
- ICT Labs
Notable alumni
- Gaurav Kapur, TV Host and Actor
- Partha Pratim Bora, Indian Politician
- Prashant Raj Sachdev, Model and actor
- Puneet Gulati, CEO, Barista
- Raghu Ram, Television Star
- Nishtha Dudeja, Model
- , NDTV Anchor, Gadget Guru
- Varun Sood, VJ and Television Actor
- Devineni Avinash, Indian Politician
- Aditi Singh Sharma, Bollywood Singer
- Mona Vasu, Television Actress
- Sriti Jha, Television Actress
- Rashi Bunny, Actress
- Nishtha Dudeja, Model
- Sachin Gupta, Singer
- Ex - IAS Officer, UPSC 1995 All India Rank 1, Currently Executive Director at Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, Harvard University
- , IAS, UPSC 2013 All India Rank 2, Currently posted as Additional Commissioner, Gurugram
- , IAS, UPSC 2012 All India Rank 19, Currently posted as Special Secretary, Govt. Of Uttar Pradesh
- Rishabh Pant, Indian Cricketer
- Tania Sachdev, International Chess Grandmaster
- Manavjit Sandhu, International Shooter, 4 time Olympian
- , International Shooter, Arjuna Award
- , International Squash Player, Arjuna Award
- Amit Luthra Golfer, Arjuna Award
- Tejas Baroka, Indian Cricketer
- Sonam Wangchuk, Indian Army Colonel, Maha Vir Chakra
- , Indian U-19 Cricketer
Student life
Student elections are held as per the DUSU format every year.
Placements
Students are regularly placed every year, after their graduation, in globally renowned companies, like the Big Four of accounting - Deloitte, KPMG, Ernst & Young and PriceWaterhouseCoopers and also at business behemoths like Amazon, Goldman Sachs and Microsoft amongst others. Students pursuing higher studies after graduation have attained admission in prestigious institutions around the world like University of Oxford, London School of Economics, Columbia University, Brown University amongst others and across the country like Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi School of Economics, Indian Institute of Science, Indian Institute of Technology, Indian Institute of Management amongst others.NEXUS
NEXUS, the annual inter-college cultural festival of Sri Venkateswara College, was founded in 1978, and is considered one of the best fests in the city. The three-day festival attracts students from all across the university. The USP of the festival are its professional shows, including the Rock Show and Celebrity Show. Apart from this it holds competitions in Dramatics, Dance, Music, Fine Arts, Literary etc. Renowned rock bands like Parikrama, Indian Ocean, Pentagram, Advaita, Euphoria etc. and celebrities like Kailash kher Sunidhi Chauhan, KK, Mohit Chauhan, Vishal Dadlani, Armaan Malik, Jazzy b, Sukhwinder Singh, Shankar Mahadevan etc. have performed at the festival. The festival is organised by Fine Arts Association in collaboration with the Students' Union.There are additional programmes like Venkateswara Swamy's Kalyanam and other poojas for Swami are done on regular basis and the prasadam is shared with students. There is an idol of Venkateswara Swamy in the college campus, which is worshipped regularly.
College Ranking
Rankings 2019 :- 9th Best College In India, 5th Best College In Delhi For Commerce
- 10th Best College In India, 5th Best College In Delhi For Sciences
- 19th Best College In India, 7th Best College In Delhi For Arts
NIRF Rankings 2019
- Listed in Top 20 Colleges Of India
- Listed in Top 10 Colleges Of Delhi