Wadding Through Odds Of Pandemic, It Was A Remarkable Feat Off And On-line For Dr. Samanta
By D N Singh
‘When there is a will, there is a way’. It was all an excellent blend of will and a dream about a global outreach which took shape in the mind of a man to have conceived two goals in his life. Education and sports, went side by side, and it did phenomenally well.
The amalgamation of the two, about 27 years back had its unprecedented saturation in the shape of KIIT and KISS.
Both are sister institutions and two sides of the same coin. It is a unique integration of the most deprived and the most elite. Though both the institutions had a modest beginning, KIIT has become one of the most promising universities in India with global appeal with almost 30,000 students from India and across the world pursuing professional Education.
And KISS has become a promontory of sportive talents and became the first exclusive tribal university, the largest tribal educational institution in the world and revolution for Empowerment.
Both are proud to have a rich sporting culture. There have been created a world-class sports infrastructure and engaged international coaches in several disciplines to nurture and hone students ‘talents. The students have been regularly bringing glory to the country, state, and the institution for the last 14 years.
At present, both have about 5000 active sportspersons, 70% of them being girls. Over 100+ students from here have represented India in Olympics, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, South Asian Federation Games, and other international meets.
KIIT & KISS always believe in the holistic development of the students and sports always hold a special subject in that development.
Founder Dr. Achyut Samanta always prefers to invest always in sports so that youth can be engaged in sporting activities during their leisure hours. Rugby & Chess are the sports whe he has invested a lot and made it one of the prominent sports of the state by producing many national & international players.
Hockey is always in the core of the Odisha youth particularly in tribal kids as many Olympians and international players have been produced in the game from Odisha state.
As it nurtures thousands of tribal students, Prof. Samanta decided to build hockey infrastructure and promote hockey at the grassroots level.
The 2021 Olympic had three from the KIIT itself which in anyway a pride for the state.
The sudden outbreak of the pandemic, in fact, put a spoke in the wheel for sometime. But it could not deter his will and along with education saw to it that, the wards remain tutored by local talents and play whatever they could to maintain their energy.
It was so arranged that, thousands of boys forced to be in their natives get the food security through monthly financial succor.
On the other, among the ones willing to be in the institution, online placements were carried on and the effort did pay the dividends extolling the placement to a record high in a climate of fear as pandemic.
