Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi

SRCC is one of the most selective colleges in the country. In the recently concluded admissions session, of 10,000 student applicants for undergrad courses, a mere 624 were admitted

Ranked India’s no.1 commerce college for the 14th year in a row in the India Today-AC Nielsen Survey of India’s Top Colleges 2010, the Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC, estb. 1932) is unarguably the country’s premier college for undergrad econo-mics and commerce education. Founded in 1932 by businessman-philanthropist Sir Shri Ram, founder of the formerly blue-chip DCM group of companies, who also promoted the Lady Shri Ram College in the national capital, SRCC’s exclusive focus on offering commerce and economics education has paid off handsomely. For the past two decades and more, its students have routinely topped the Delhi University undergra-duate examinations with several of them securing high ranks in the all-India civil services and chartered accountancy exams. Currently 1,850 students are pursuing bachelor’s degree studies with an additional 100 enroled in SRCC’s Masters (commerce and economics) programmes, tutored by 150 faculty.

“Like every year, this year too, our students have secured the first three ranks in the B.Com degree exam of Delhi University. Given that SRCC is one of the country’s most prestigious colleges, we attract high-quality students from across the country. It is our constant endeavour to flower their potential by providing excellent academic, cultural and intellectual resources,” says P.C. Jain, principal of SRCC. An alumnus of Rajasthan and Delhi universities, Jain began his teaching career in 1971 as a lecturer in SRCC where he taught for 40 years before taking charge as principal in 2005.

Affiliated with Delhi University, which has more than 80 constituent colleges in the national capital region, SRCC is one of the most selective (in terms of admission) higher education institutions in the country. In its recently concluded admissions session, of 10,000-plus student applicants for undergrad courses, only 624 were admitted into this highly-prized institution.

SRCC traces its roots to the Comm-ercial School, which was established in 1920 and offered the city’s first post-matriculation commerce diploma progra-mme. In 1926 it transformed into the Commercial College after it was conferred affiliation by Delhi University and began to offer fully-fledged bache-lor’s degree programmes in commerce and economics. In 1951, on the occasion of its silver jubilee, the college management took a unilateral decision to rename Commercial College as the Shri Ram College of Commerce in recognition of the handsome endowment of Rs.5 lakh made by Lala Shri Ram. Six years later in 1957 the newly christened SRCC moved its campus from Daryaganj to a sprawling 17-acre site within the North Campus of Delhi University.

Today, SRCC’s immaculately land-scaped campus is dominated by its red-brick circular main building which incorporates lecture rooms on two floors and a central Clock Tower. In 2006-07 the Delhi state government awarded herit-age status to the main block. Additional classrooms, library blocks, students’ hostel, cafetaria, common room, and staff residences flank the main building.

Investment in enabling infrastructure is a priority area for the college management. Currently the college’s 50 air-conditioned classrooms boast the latest ICT equipment, LCD projectors and electronic boards, while the fully-automated 750-seat college library hosts an impressive collection of 70,000 volumes, subscription to 80 national and international journals. Two well-equipped computer centres offer 82 terminals with the latest software and internet access.

SRCC’s huge sports complex is currently being renovated to be used as a stadium for the forthcoming Common-wealth Games. Once completed, it will have facilities for rugby, wrestling, a swimming pool, tennis court, gymna-sium, indoor badminton court, basket-ball court, lawn tennis court, etc. Construction of a new 100-bed girls’ hostel is also underway. SRCC became co-educational in 1957 although it had admitted a lone girl student way back in 1933. Currently it has an enrolment of 1,000-plus women students.

Given its excellent reputation for academic innovation and learning outcomes, it’s not surprising that campus recruitment is a major event with over 40 companies descending on the college every summer to recruit graduates. They include Bank of Ame-rica, KPMG, Lehman Brothers among others. In the latest campus recruitment exercise, the highest remuneration package offered to an economics graduate was a whopping Rs.32 lakh per annum with the average ranging between Rs.7-10 lakh.

Apart from its bachelor’s and Master’s programmes in economics and commerce, SRCC also offers a two-year postgraduate programme in intern-ational trade — the Global Business Operation Programme (GBO). Introduced in academic collaboration with the Ieseg School of Management, France in 1999, GBO has an annual intake of 62 students with a 100 percent placement record with premier companies such as Standard Chartered Bank, Smart Cube, Trident Group, and Unicon Investments hiring its postgraduates at an average remune-ration package of Rs.6.8 lakh per year.

As in all colleges affiliated with Delhi University, tuition fees in SRCC are frozen at 1947 levels and average a mere Rs.6,000-7,000 per year. Revenue from fees meets only 5 percent of annual budget/expenditure. Consequently while faculty salaries are paid by the Union government, SRCC is heavily dependent on the Rs.10-11 crore annual grant it receives from the University Grants Commission.

“Although as a constituent college of Delhi University we are not permitted to determine tuition fee structures, we raise additional resources through alumni and faculty consultancy projects. Moreover we are generously funded by the Shri Ram Trust which gives us an annual grant of Rs.50 lakh and funds special projects. SRCC is committed to offering its students the best academic resour-ces in a enabling state-of-the-art learning environment. Very soon we plan to introduce e-learning facilities on campus with students able to access recorded lectures on laptops provided at subsi-dised rates by our alumni,” says Jain.

Thus the country’s No.1 commerce and economics college gets by, living hand-to-mouth and dependent upon government subsidies.

Manisha Jain (Delhi)