Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya

Administration

The chancellor is the Governor of West Bengal. The vice-chancellor as the chief executive of the University is supported by the registrar in administration, comptroller in financial management, deans of academic activities of the faculties, and directors for management of research and extension activities in agriculture, horticulture, and agricultural engineering. The vice-chancellor’s secretariat is staffed with a secretary to the vice-chancellor, one superintendent, two clerical assistants. and seven office attendants are a supportive unit in functioning the office.

Faculty of Agriculture

The Faculty of Agriculture consisted of 17 departments, which has recently been reduced to 16 by merging two departments into one, all with specializations in teaching, research and extension for the development of agriculture in this state. One hundred students are admitted each year in the undergraduate courses on the basis of their performance at higher secondary (10+2) level. Apart from the general agricultural subjects, during their final year the students undertake specialized subjects along with a job-oriented course in the 7th semester as a module, and they undergo the training named ‘Rural Agricultural Work Experience’ (RAWE) during the 8th semester.

The departments of this faculty are:

Faculty of Horticulture

The Faculty of Horticulture was established in 1996. The objective of creation of the faculty was to initiate education and training in horticulture, to conduct need-based research for the development of horticulture in West Bengal, and to disseminate the technology for growing horticultural crops and post harvest management of produce.

Initially the faculty functioned with very limited space in the Faculty of Agriculture. Now it is housed in the newly constructed faculty building at Mohanpur. The instructional facilities include one horticultural farm at Mondouri and one nursery at Jagulia. The UG classes are held at Jagulia where a small instructional farm is maintained. The 150-acre farm at Mondouri that is the Horticultural Research Station provides facilities for practical and project works of M.Sc. and Ph.D. students for all the departments under this faculty.

There are five departments in this faculty:

Faculty of Agricultural Engineering

With the advancement of technology related to agricultural inputs coupled with the equipment and energy sources for their application, it has become essential to optimize these to increase production and conserve natural resources. Agricultural engineers today are required to provide technology for increasing crop production and for reducing post harvest losses and value additions through processing of produce. Increasing export opportunity in agricultural and allied industrial sector, besides diversification has put additional demand on agricultural engineering education to meet the growing requirement of food feed and fiber through efficient management of costly inputs. In the matter of this kind of improvement, agricultural engineering plays a very great role in further development of food productivity, agro-based industries, post-harvesting, food processing, soil and water engineering, irrigation and drainage, etc., through software-based latest technologies.

With the advancement of agriculture, gricultural engineering education has been gradually developed and taken shape through inclusion of theoretical as well as practical courses in multi-directional fields of Soil & Water Engineering, Irrigation and Drainage Engineering, Land and Water Resource Development and Management, Rural Engineering, Aqua-cultural Engineering, Farm Development and Management, Marketing, Marketing and Sales, Computer Applications, etc.

There are four departments in this faculty:

M.Tech and Ph.D programmes are available in Department of Farm Machinery & Power, Department of Soil and Water Engineering and Department of Food Engineering.

Directorate of Research

The Directorate of Research at Kalyani is the coordinating–monitoring headquarters of the research stations, sub-stations, units, sub-units and projects spread over the jurisdiction of the viswavidyalaya. A substantial number of research projects under programmes and funding modes operate on farmers’ fields (on-farm trials, FLD trials) at three major agro-climatic regions of the state and at other zones across West Bengal. Several experiments are conducted in a scientist–farmer participatory manner.

Directorate of Extension Education

The Directorate of Extension Education, in the Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, was created in 1994 through upgrading the Field Extension Wing, which took care of mainly the farm advisory services among a few villages surrounding the headquarters campus of the Viswavidyalaya. The upgrade attempt, though initiated late, was made in line with the mandate of the SAUs to organize "first line extension" activities to complement their research and education role, as well as to strengthen the efforts of the state extension machinery towards transferring proven and tested technological options for increased production and productivity. However, the manpower, as well as the infrastructure, corresponding to the enlargement of the mandated roles and responsibilities assumed by the directorate, consequent to its upgrade, continued to remain inadequate.

The roles and responsibilities of the Directorate of Extension Education were enlarged to accommodate the recommendations of the Randhawa Committee (1978) and the National Commission on Agriculture (1976). These recommendations, inter-alta, suggested a complementary role for the education and research for organizing the extension functions through the following sets of interrelated activities:

Directorate of Farms

The Directorate of Farms functions in the realm of agricultural research, education, and extension. The directorate has 1340.6 acres of land distributed in 12 farms. Its activities are listed below:

Central Library

The university is proud of its library system which was inaugurated in 1980 comprises only the Central Library at Mohanpur, Main campus. It is housed in a four storied building encompassing 5575 sq. m. floor space with a plan area of 7242 sq. m. having a good architectural beauty. To facilitate the teaching, research, and extension activities of an agriculture university, the library plays a pivotal role. The library has been striving to meet user demands by rendering services through manual and IT-based systems.

Services offered:

Placement Cell

A fully equipped and proficient placement centre is being housed in the campus for the convenience of our graduating students. This year-round placement activity involves students in interactive counseling sessions with members of the placement cell to ensure their gainful placement in jobs before they leave the university.

Student life

Being a student of this prestigious university is mostly respected among the local people as well as other agriculture concerned personalities all over the state. Student life is pleasing but it is equally challenging in study and discipline due to the vast syllabus and the strict rules and regulations. The students are known as "BCKVians" in general.

Accommodation

The student circle of this university is mainly hostel oriented, with very few students from nearby Haringhata, Kanchrapara & Kalyani each year of UG and PG, called Dayscholars. The majority of students as Hostellers belong to the different parts of the state, the country, even international students. There are several hostels according to criteria for accommodation inside the university campus.

All the hostels have good study environments along with dining halls and common rooms featuring carrom boards, table tennis, magazines and newspapers, widescreen LCD TVs etc. for leisure hours. The hostels are being planned WiFi or Broadband connections for students.

Campus

The university has a well planned campus of magnificent aesthetics. It features well distributed greenery of decorative, educational and medicinal importance, has its own Medicinal & Aromatic Plants' Garden between the main building of the Faculty of Agriculture & the way to the Central Library.

All the faculty buildings, special purpose isolated laboratories, workshops and hostels are well connected through roads and at the center lies the Administrative Building. Each hostel is no more than a five-minute walk from the center area of the campus.

The campus is shared with the Faculty of Dairy Technology, West Bengal University of Animal & Fishery Sciences and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata (IISER-K). A beautiful foot-bridge over a lake connects the IISER-K campus with the BCKV main campus. Several gates are available to enter into the main campus, shared IISER-K campus, hostels, Jagulia farm or Mondouri Teaching Farm as need basis. The campus houses a cafeteria, several canteens, a health centre, XEROX centers and a book shop.

The nearest railway station is Kanchrapara, roughly 8 km from the main campus connecting Sealdah and Howrah. The NH-34 passes within 1 km from it, connecting 50 km away Kolkata by road.

Central Students Union

The university has three Students Unions for three faculties, which run unitedly as a form of Central Students Union (CSU or simply SU). It deals with every relevant issue of the students starting from education, research, welfare to job-oriented problems. As so, it is the common platform for manifestation of students voice, throughout the year. Moreover, it fosters among the students love and loyalty to the university, increases the growth of closer social and cultural reaction between teachers and students, and fosters a spirit of cooperative activities.

In tune with the ever-increasing provision of the university for quality education, the union has an ever-increasing reputation of maintaining healthy educational and cultural environment along with creating and sustaining awareness of democratic value on the campus.

Activities

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Notable alumni