Sree Neelakanta Govt Sanskrit College, Palakkad

About Sree Neelakanta Govt Sanskrit College, Palakkad

Sree Neelakanta Govt Sanskrit college is a ‘First Grade’ Arts & Science College affiliated to the University of Calicut and recognized as the ‘Centre of Excellence’ in the field of Higher Education by Govt. of Kerala. Founded by and named after the celebrated Sanskrit scholar Sri Punnasseri Nampi Neelakanta Sarma 1885—1916, the college offers eleven undergraduate, six postgraduate and four research programs spread across in arts, science and commerce through sixteen departments. At the moment the college enjoys A Grade accreditation by the NAAC. Led by a host of dynamic and imaginative teachers working in tandem with industrious students, college is committed to greater outreach by integrating technical breakthroughs with classroom transactions on the one side and instilling the values of syncretic cultural outlook and broader mindset on the other. The college is located in a sprawling verdant campus almost two kilometers off from the famed river Nila in Pattambi and is reachable by train or bus easily.

Sree Neelakanta Government Sanskrit College, one of the seven First Grade Government Colleges in Kerala, was founded in 1899 by the renowned Sanskrit scholar Punnassery Neelakanta Sarma. The College is located in the town of Pattambi, Palakkad Dt and is easily accessible by bus and train. There are more than 1,300 students, mostly hailing from the lower echelons of society. The college has 11 Under Graduate Programmes, 6 Post Graduate Programmes and 4 Research Departments. One fourth of the teachers hold doctoral degrees and many are on the way. The College is committed to the welfare of the student population and the society and every possible measure is taken to realize the target.

A modest inception, surprising turns, daunting crises and phenomenal growth—perhaps this is the shortest, if not the best, way to describe the story of the college. In 1889, Sri Punnasseri Nampi Neelakanta Sarma founded a Sanskrit school in Perumudiyoor, a sleepy hamlet near Pattambi, to popularize the classical language. Arguably, it was the natural extension of Vijnanacintamani, a monthly he had started two years ago with the same intention. In fact, he went out of the way to get a printing press installed in his residential premises, a feat unthinkable for most of his contemporaries and quite unheard of in the vicinity. The journal, however, was to have a checkered existence, for understandable reasons. Often Sarma had to pay from his own pocket to bail out his pet project and would find himself impoverished in the fag end of his eventful life. The school, though stationed in British Malabar, was more a guru kula than the familiar structure of formal education and drew disciples from all over the princely states of Malabar, Cochin and Travancore, largely transcending the restrictive agency of community. The splurge in number of disciples called for a school of more regular and formal nature. As in the case of the aforementioned journal, the school too made many holes in his wallet. Much later, due to the incessant and concerted appeals, the government allowed a grant for the run and upkeep of the school. Though the amount sanctioned was meager, Nampi remained unfazed and plodded along in his mission to take Sanskrit to every nook and cranny of the society. Combining his innate energy with the aspirations of a people, he pressurized the Madras Government to elevate the school to the status of a college. Eventually the University of Madras, gave affiliation in 1911, and the school came to be rechristened ‘Central Sanskrit College’.