Ananda College, Hazaribagh

About Ananda College, Hazaribagh

Annada College, Hazaribag is the only Linguistic Minority College of Jharkhand. The College was established in the year 1979 to commemorate the centenary celebration of Annada High School. Started with less than 50 students, the college is now having more than 5000 students on its roll.The campus is situated in the heart of the town with a vast and beautiful academic block, a separate administrative block, Science laboratories, well equipped library and all other modern facilities.

The motto and vision of the founders of the college was to spread and disseminate the light of knowledge in every nook and corner of the world. The mission of the college is to preserve andpromote language, literature and culture. It also aims to impart a liberal, modern, sound andquality education to the poor and downtrodden students at an affordable cost, especially to thetribal from the poorest strata of the society and most rural background, in frontier areas ofmodern education, apart from the fundamental stream. This self financed college got permanentaffiliation in the academic session 1991 – 1992 and recognition by the UGC under 2 f and 12-Bin the year 1993.

The college is affiliated to Vinoba Bhave University, Hazaribag which is relatively a new University Established in 1992.The College campus is located in an area of 05.63 acres in the heart of the town of Hazaribag which happens to be the District Headquarter. Like any other town of Jharkhand, it is not a very developed area. The nearest railway station is at a distance of about 59 kms. The only means of transportation and travel is private transport service. The State Govt. buses ply but rarely. The electric supply is very poor. The use of computers and other electrical gadgets are adversely affected because of this.

Most of the students of this college come from the surrounding villages which are Naxal affected. The frequent Bandh calls adversely affect the presence of the students in the college which leads to the disruption of academic and co-curricular activities. The town area, however, is least affected by Bandh calls and Naxalism. The National Highways leading to Hazaribag are more or less safe if there is no Bandh Call.

The red tapism at different levels need not to be mentioned makes it a Herculean task for us tointroduce new courses. Even then, the college has introduced 06 new courses 03 Vocational Degree Courses and 03 Add-on Courses. Unfortunately, the low paying capacity of the studentsprevents them from joining these courses. Since it is a self-financed college which is merelysurviving on its meagre source of revenue, nothing much can be done in this regard.

The college reaps the advantage of being situated in the district headquarter. It has a consistentin flow of students. It is the first affiliated college of the region to get registered under sections2 f and 12-B of UGC. It is also the first affiliated college to seek accreditation from NAAC.

Unfortunately, the college could not exploit the things to its benefit properly. It tried to follow the recommendations of the NAAC Peer Team but the financial constraints and the mind-set of saying-no-to-change affected the speed of progress. There is no significant enhancement of fees in the last 05 years. But the salary of the staff has increased manifolds. The additional revenuewas generated by introducing 03 Vocational Degree Courses and 03 Add-On Courses. We also got some lump sum grants from the Govt. in this regard. In the year 2005, the Number of Students was only 3168 but now it is 5862 almost double but the number of staff are more or less same. The number of books in the library increased from 18000 to almost 30000. The number of computers has increased decently. Internet facility has been provided. The use of ICT is promoted. Almost all the classrooms are equipped with OHPs. The research work and faculty improvement programmes improved considerably, The Total Built Up area is almost doubled.

The automation of the library has been initiated. The co-curricular and extra-curricular activities are promoted and placements and other activities are introduced. There are deficiencies too. But the brightest part of the college is its relation with the Stakeholders. The students and their parents are very co-operative. They understand the problemsof the college management and hardly make a demand for even the bare minimum facilities!