KIIT founder at centre of storm over Nepalese student’s death: Who is Achyuta Samanta?

KIIT founder Achyuta Samanta and other top functionaries of the private engineering college last week recorded their statements before a government committee on the alleged suicide of a Nepalese girl in her hostel and attack on students of her country, officials said

Samanta, a former BJD MP, was questioned for about two hours by the high-level committee headed by Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Satyabrata Sahu at the state guest house.

Who is Achyuta Samanta?

- As per a report in The Indian Express, Samanta was merely 25 years old when he established an Industrial Training Institute (ITI) and named it KIIT, since he considered 'K' to be his lucky charm.

- He started KIIT with an initial investment of Rs 5,000 in 1992-1993 with only 12 students and two employees in two rented rooms. “The Rs 5,000 with the help of which he started KIIT was also a bank loan. But he was very determined to do things and his mother was his inspiration through his life,” Rabi Behera, who is now the head of Samajwadi Party's Odisha unit told the publication. He was also Samanta's university classmate. Samanta did his Master's in Chemistry from Utkal University.

- Samanta, who was just 4 years old when he lost his father, made KIIT a huge success and also established Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), in 1993. He reportedly offered free education to more than 20,000 poor tribal children from Odisha through KISS. This helped him bag national and international funding for his institutions.

- Samanta added several new courses in 2007, by then KIIT had become a full-fledged engineering college. Till date, Samanta has hosted over 24 Nobel laureates at the KIIT and the KISS, former President A P J Abdul Kalam, ex-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, being among them. Meanwhile, Samanta reportedly has over 60 honorary doctorates.

- Before he joined Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in 2018, Samantha had always maintained his distance from active politics. In 2019, Samanta won the Kandhamal seat by about 1.5 lakh votes, before he lost it in 2024. After this, he retired from politics.

- Despite his huge educational empire, in the 2024 election affidavit, Samant claimed that the total assets he owned were only worth Rs 71.43 lakh.

- Meanwhile, in 2012, a CAG report claimed that Odisha’s nodal agency for land acquisition Idco gave “undue benefits” worth Rs 66.25 crore to the KIIT.

(With PTI inputs)