ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT

• The Department of Botany was established in the year of 1994 with the initiation of Honours courses. Around 1953 onwards it was germinated as an Intermediate of Science (I.Sc.) without introduction of Biological Sciences and passing the days the stream was elevated to B.Sc. (Pass course) with the combination of the subjects of Botany, Zoology and Chemistry in the year of 1967. System have been changed with the advent of time and now the new pattern has been introduced as Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) under the University of Gour Banga (UGB) in the year 2019 along with the existing 1+1+1 systems in parallel in both Honours and General courses. After the departure of renowned teacher late Dr. Biswaranjan Banerjee, the responsibility of the department the then entrusted to the two full time teachers namely Mr. Bikash Ranjan Mitra and Mr. Pijush Kanti Saha. Later on, in1998, the college authority engaged two part-time teachers namely Mrs. Chandra Kundu and Mr. Partha Sarathi Nandy to run the department smoothly. Its smooth germination was started after joining of another one full time teacher namely Dr. (Mrs.) Phalguni Bhattacharya in the middle of August 1998. Fortunately, the department got another fulltime teacher Dr. Arindam Mukherjee thereafter and both of them had been in service for a pretty of years. However, both of them left the department to join other different colleges at their choice. The Department is fortunate for joining another three full time teachers namely Dr. Md. Masidur Alam, Mr. Santanu Gupta and Dr. Somnath Roy later on. Now the department is very graciously run by seven (07) faculty members who are relentlessly leading to transform the department into a great extent. The Department is fortunate that a good number of pass-out students successfully contributing the society in many parts of India in various field like education, research, corporate world etc. since its beginning.

• Along with its Faculty members, the Department of Botany is well equipped with a good number of facilities like the Medicinal Plants Gardens, Angiosperm Herbarium, Palaeobotanical Museum and newly set up of Mushroom Cultivation and Production Unit in 2019 for best hands-on practices for skill development of the students so that the students can get themselves prosperous in future. In addition, with the normal class routine activities, the faculties are conducting various innovative programme and methodologies to make the students more interesting in the field of plant sciences. The course is not restricted within the course curriculum but it also encourages the students by hands on skill-based practices by the department time to time. Local flora including endangered plants are preserved in tolerable formaldehyde solution. The plants or plant parts are usually sun dried or allowed to maintain the sample specimen for pressing with certain tools and then pasted on the herbarium sheet. Big plant parts like fruit, inflorescence, flower, cone etc. are also preserved in tolerable formaldehyde solution. Students visit the pond in various seasons which is located within our college campus to familiar with the flora of different trophic levels with the help of faculty members when and where required.

• Moreover, the students of each year are participating in various co-curricular activities like Student Seminar, Model Exhibition and many more whatever the department extend the access time to expand their interest and knowledge beyond the schedule classes. Students’ seminar is one of the major initiatives by the department to make our students more confident in deliberation and presentation in broad spectrum as the seminar is judged by an external expert. Model exhibition is also an important event by the college and the students spontaneously plan, prepare model and participate in the event. Faculty members are well developed in communicating the students by taking classes through Google Meet, YouTube and share the Teaching learning material through Google Classroom to be educated in more advance way.