Stuck with a fee problem while doing his engineering course, T.R. Shamsudheen tried reasoning and arguing his case with the college authorities. He had managed an admission at St. Michael College of Engineering, Kalayarkoil, near Madurai on an NRI quota (through an agent). He and his family found out later that the fee, annually, was $1,000 more than it was for regular admissions; a huge sum of money for a middle class family. By thinking on his feet and working hard not only did he solve the problem but also, today, at 30, he runs two engineering colleges.
This is the stuff of films…he was 24 when he opened his first engineering college. Talking about films, he is also the producer of the Nivin Pauly-starrer 1983 .
To get back to the original story, he wasn’t getting anywhere with the management about his fees. A team from his college was in his hometown, Thrissur, canvassing admissions. Since he was there he thought of chipping in with the process. “I spoke to the students and parents about the college. Being a student there helped and I was able to get a couple of admissions.” That took care of his fee problem.
He went on to become part of the admission process and helped the college get students. He was given a percentage of commission for each admission. Over the years, he says, he helped turn the campus ‘Malayali friendly’.
“The four years I spent there, I was busy this way. By the time I graduated I had made a capital of around Rs. 4 lakh.”
His was a regular, government service-dependant family, his mother retired from the education department. Stories he heard from his father, a writer in the police department, about the ‘Tatas and Birlas’ and the success of enterprise deeply impacted him and he wanted to be an entrepreneur. A job or a degree for him was to be a means to raise capital for a business. In keeping with the plan, by the time he graduated he had built a capital to start a business.
In the mid 2000s Bengaluru was evolving as the Malayali’s go to place. Like all engineering graduates he too moved there to find a job. Once there he realised that internet cafes were much in demand and opened a Net café. He promoted other engineering colleges alongside.
While he was at all this, a dream took root. An educational institution where he could implement his ideas and run it the way he wanted to. Capital in hand, he chanced upon an abandoned Arabic college on the outskirts of Thrissur.
“The plan was to set up something along the lines of an MBA institution. It was a 10 acre property and the 40,000 sq.ft. building was in a sorry state.” He acquired the property and got down to work. He drew the plan for the college, added a 20,000 sq.ft. workshop; with a local politician as partner he set up his first college.
He was just 24 when the late APJ Abdul Kalam inaugurated the college in 2009.
“In the first year itself we broke even. It took six months of sheer hard work; the colleges I had promoted helped me with contacts and resources. In retrospect it was a huge risk but at the time I didn’t think of it like that.”
Soon, he struck out on his own, selling his share in the college and set up his own college in Muvattupuzha. Seeing potential there he had invested in real estate which is today the campus of his Cochin Institute of Science and Technology.
Abdul Kalam inaugurated the entrepreneurship development cell of this college in May this year almost a month before he passed away. Simultaneously he set up another college at Valancheri in Malappuram. Despite talk about a glut in engineering seats at engineering colleges, he maintains that his colleges boast 70 to 80 per cent admissions.
He wants to grow in education – he has the franchise for a pre-school chain and hopes to set up its school division. “When I started out I didn’t have too many goals, I just wanted to get the college up and running. Over time I have gathered some goals. I want my educational group to grow – to the stature of an Amity University or the SRM Group. I would like to take over engineering colleges that are not doing too well and turn them around. It is not about money, it is about what I can do. I want to invest in my students. It is about getting respect.”
Films and education seem an unlikely combination – a friendship and an interesting script led to 1983 , he says. There was a lot of sweat, tears and of course money in that film. Of a future in films, he says, “I want to invest in films with interesting stories. Not as a money making enterprise.”
It is almost two years since 1983 and he is yet to make another. The pressure, he admits, is immense. His focus is clear – education, but there is space for films.
“Producing a film is easy, compared to how much I struggled to set up my colleges.”
