Coaching for Civil Service exams has caught on in Hyderabad over the years. Till the 2000s, the city was the destination for the aspirants from entire South India.
And till the late 90s, just a handful of them ran their show here attracting students from all Southern States. At that time, Hyderabad Study Circle, R.C. Reddy Study Circle, Rau’s Study Circle and Brain Tree, apart from AP Study Circle, were the only institutes.
The surging interest in Civils coaching attracted a lot of institutes from New Delhi but they closed finding it difficult to sustain. However, the institutes set up by Telugu people, who were themselves Civil Service aspirants once upon a time, continued to grow even if that was slow.
HSC
One institute that stands out is the Hyderabad Study Circle (HSC), the go-to centre for Civil Services coaching in the 80s and 90s. The uniqueness of this centre is that it was established by well-meaning civil servants who wanted to share their experience with the aspirants along with a few academics. In fact, the present DGP, M. Mahender Reddy, and former city Police Commissioner M.V. Krishna Rao are among those who are actively involved in it.
While HSC is a society run by civil servants with affordable coaching for anyone, the AP Study Circle was in the government sector exclusively supporting the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes communities.
Both the institutes produced good results before private institutes came in. In fact, V. Gopalakrishna, director of Brain Tree, a private training institute, says that the AP Study Circle was a role model for several governments in the country to be emulated. “HSC was the first to modernise classrooms and use technology yet keeping coaching affordable,” he says.
The Rau’s Academy, which is well-known across the country, also had a centre here in the 80s. But Prof. Rau, a Telugu man, focused on his centre in New Delhi slowly moving out of Hyderabad. Before starting his academy in the city, Prof. Rau taught at the Hyderabad Study Circle.
Considered a legend in the field, the then AP government offered him 10 acres in Gandipet to run the academy but that didn’t take the expected shape after he passed away a decade ago.
The BC Study Circle was also started later focussing on Backward Classes. Principal secretary, BC Welfare, Burra Venkatesham, who was the State topper in the 1995 batch, is now adopting unique strategies to enhance the reach and quality as per Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s wish. Mr. Venkatesham is now the driving force behind modernisation and spread of these institutes in every district.
Around the year 2000, there was a surge in private institutes and now, there are dozens. But, there are just six to seven institutes that focus only on Civil Services. The others have opened doors for Group-I, Group-II and other services due to the money factor.
Osmania University vice-chancellor D. Ravinder too, decided to start an exclusive Civil Services Academy at the varsity now while the Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) has revived its centre this year.
