Dilip Thakore interviewed Dr. B.S. Rao in the Sri Chaitanya Group of Institutions (SCGI) head office in Hyderabad. Excerpts from the 60-minutes interview: In 1986 after practising medicine in the UK and Iran for 16 years, you and your wife Dr. Jhansi Lakshmi Bai Boppana returned to India to start the first Sri Chaitanya school in Vijayawada. What were your aims and objectives at the time? The inception of SCGI was the outcome of a long-cherished dream. We had observed that students — especially girl children — from rural Andhra Pradesh had very limited access to professional education because of lack of awareness or resources. Therefore, we took the initiative to address this lacuna by establishing the first Sri Chaitanya Girls Junior College 36 years ago. Our objective was to prepare students who were deserving and meritorious get access to top-ranked higher education institutions and become successful in their careers. This required a fresh approach to intermediate-level education. Almost four decades later, how satisfied are you with the evolution and progress of the Sri Chaitanya Group of Institutions? The growth of SCGI since then has been tremendous. After we established a boys’ junior college in Hyderabad in 1991, we quickly launched several junior colleges (classes XI-XII) in other towns of then unified Andhra Pradesh. Currently, there are 321 state board-affiliated junior colleges and 322 K-10 Sri Chaitanya Techno Schools in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. In addition, we have established 107 CBSE-affiliated Chaitanya schools in other states of India. This is very satisfactory progress.
