First women's college of Alipurduar

 

COOCH BEHAR, April 1: At last, after an eight-year-long effort, the demand for establishment of a women's college in Alipurduar of Jalpaiguri district got the state government's approval. Till construction of the college's own building the classes will be held at Alipurduar Collegiate School from the next academic session starting from July.

 

It may be mentioned here that there are six colleges in Alipurduar sub-division but those are not enough to meet the growing need for higher education of the students especially the girl students.

 

Alipurduar MLA Mr Nirmal Das had taken the initiative for setting up a women's college in Alipurduar in 2001. An Organising committee was also constituted with the ADM, the SDO and the MLA as the president, the working president and the secretary respectively. Since then on the body was engaged in efforts to set up the college.

 

At the first phase, a strip of three-acre land of Satyanarayan Rice Mill was earmarked for construction of the college building. But, following a dispute between Jalpaiguri Zilla Parishad and the Alipurduar Municipality over the ownership of the land made the process delayed. Recently, after mitigation of the dispute at the court the JZP handed over a piece of one-acre land to the college. In February, a team of senior officials from the state higher education department visited the site and examined all required documents. Following their report the state government approved the college.

 

Welcoming the approval the Alipurduar MLA Mr Nirmal Das said they would leave no stone unturned to make the first women's college of Alipurduar a full-fledged one. They will also request the JZP to allocate a strip of five-acre land for the college, he said.

 

It was learnt that the classes of the new women's college would start with about two hundred girls in arts faculty from the next academic session. []