Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College

History

Established on 7 August 1961, the Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College is the fifth oldest of all technical institutions (centrally and state funded) besides the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (1856, Formerly Bengal Engineering and Science University), Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur (1951), Jadavpur University (1955) and National Institute of Technology, Durgapur (1960, Formerly REC Durgapur) in the state of West Bengal.

In the Initial years JGEC was under the University of Calcutta. For the period between 1963 and 1999, the college was affiliated to the University of North Bengal ,which handed over the rich mantle of technical excellence to the West Bengal University Of Technology, Founded under the West Bengal University Of Technology Act, 2000.

In 2012, the institute was granted complete autonomy by the University Grants Commission, India, thus giving it the freedom to set its own curriculum and manage its own finances. With affiliation to the West Bengal University Of Technology, the institute is now an autonomous engineering college under The Government of West Bengal.

Administration

The college is an autonomous technical institution offering B.Tech and M.Tech courses in engineering and is under direct control of the Government of West Bengal, having a Governing Body i.e. Board of Governors, consisting of Vice-Chancellor of North Bengal University (Chairman), Principal of the College ( Member Secretary ), Additional chief Secretary/ Principal Secretary (Department of Higher Education, Government of West Bengal), Director of Technical Education ( Government of West Bengal), Vice-Chancellor of West Bengal University of Technology, Regional Officer, All India Council for Technical Education (Eastern region), Sabhadhipati of Jalpaiguri Zilla Parishad, District Magistrate of Jalpaiguri District, Superintending Engineer (Electrical, P. W. D. Circle-6), Superintending Engineer (P. W. D. North Bengal Construction Circle-2), Senior Manager of IBM (India), Director (Project) of Cognizant Technology Solutions India Pvt. Ltd, Chief Executive Officer of Siliguri Jalpaiguri Development Authority, Managing Director of North Bengal State Transport Corporation, Two elected Representative of Faculty of the College, One elected representative of the Non-teaching staff of the College, One Student Representative of the College.

The Members of Academic Advisory Body are all Professors, assistant Professors/readers and Lecturers in substantive appointment and the Principal of the College are members of the Faculty Council. In the Faculty Council, the Principal is Ex-Officio Chairman. Governing Body Meeting is being held 4 times or more in an academic year on executive affairs. Faculty and Students are involved in active academic affairs and improvement of Teaching and Learning through Departmental Faculty and Students wing for various institutional academic reforms with the vision for future improvement.

Geography

Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College is located squarely in the middle of the chicken's neck covering a land of 165 acres, 40 kilometres east of Siliguri. The very famous hill station of Darjeeling is only three hours drive from the college campus. Other hill stations of Kalimpong, Kurseong, Lava, Lolegaon all equally famous tourist spots are only again within three hours drive. To the North is 'Dooars' meaning door to Bhutan. Dooars is famous for numerous Tea Gardens producing world class CTC Tea, Gorumara National Forest and Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary. One can have full view of the Eastern Himalayas and Mt. Kanchanjunga, the second highest peak in the Himalayas after Mount Everest and the third highest in the world, from the college campus. To the East, is the mighty river Teesta. The river Karala flows on the Western boundary of the campus. To the South is the lifeline of the North-East, the National Highway Number 31A.

The nearest airport is 'Bagdogra' only 58 km from the college campus. Bagdogra is well connected to both New Delhi and Kolkata with daily flights Jet Airways','Air Deccan' and thrice a week by 'Indian Airlines'. Bagdogra is also connected to Guwahati with daily flights by 'Jet Airways' and thrice a week by Indian Airlines.

The nearest railway station(s) is Jalpaiguri Road (JPE) and Jalpaiguri Junction (RQJ) and Jalpaiguri City (JPG) which are just approximately 2 km, 5.5 km and 6 km away respectively.

Academics

Admission to most undergraduate and postgraduate courses in JGEC is granted through written entrance examinations. Admission to undergraduate programmes in JGEC is through the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination (WBJEE). Candidates who qualify for admission through WBJEE can apply for admission in four-year B.Tech (Bachelor of Technology) at JGEC. The admissions to postgraduate programmes i.e. MTech (Master of Technology) are made primarily through the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE). 20.63% of the seats are reserved for students belonging to Scheduled Castes (SC) and 6.35% for Scheduled Tribes (ST).And as of 2015, 3.17% separate reservation exists for the People with Disability (PwD/PH) and 4.61% for the students with Tuition Fee Waiver (TFW)

With over fifty years of continued academic excellence, the institution has grown rapidly in terms of eminence. The intellectual and analytical component of faculty for human resource development with social skills and responsibilities are of highest academic value of the institution.The institute has implemented a continuous process of thrust in Networking Linkage with esteemed Institutions and Industry as formal and informal network partner of our institution for institutional and faculty development.

Undergraduate education

Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College offers four year under-graduate degree courses in the following six disciplines:

It is based on a four-year programme with eight semesters. The first year of the B.Tech curriculum has common courses from various departments. From the second year onwards, the students take courses offered by their respective departments. In the final year of their studies, most of the students are offered jobs in industries and other organisations through the Training and Placement section of the college. Some students opt out of this facility in favour of higher studies or by applying to recruiting organisations directly.

Postgraduate education

It also provides post-graduate courses in the following two disciplines:

Accreditation and Ranking

Although Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College does not formally participate in any ranking programs, it is considered by reputed Newspapers & media sources like The Telegraph to be third among the engineering colleges in the state of West Bengal in factors like infrastructure, placement record and faculty but due to a far away location from the state capital Kolkata it stands fourth in Opening and Closing ranks of WBJEE counselling.

According to Uttarbanga Sambad of 19 January 2012, The Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College achieved the best score among the technical institutions (State funded) in West Bengal in the evaluation reports of UGC (2011) by a panel of six technical experts led by Prof. P.V. Narasimha Prasad, University College of Engineering, Osmania University (Formerly, Osmania Engineering College) and was ahead of Jadavpur University in all parameters except one. In a scale of ten, JGEC achieved 9.3 in academics (national average 7.4), 8.8 in project formulation (national average 8.6), 9.6 in administrative development, 9.4 in Administrative system & efficiency (nation average 7.9) and 9.4 in Training and placement program (national average 7.3).

Highly rated courses include mechanical engineering and electronics and communications engineering. All the courses of Jalpaiguri Government Engineering college are NBA and AICTE accredited.

Moreover, in the year 2012 it was announced a full-fledged Autonomous Institution under the Government of West Bengal. Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College was also selected among 127 Institutions ( including 18 Centrally Funded Institutions) for the TEQIP (Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme) phase-1 by Ministry of Human Resource Development , Government of India and World Bank, in March 2003 to promote Academic Excellence and to improve the quality of technical education system in the country.

Additional Educational Initiatives

The institution has been tied-up with Amrita Viswa-Vidyapeetham for INDO-US Inter-University Collaborative Initiative in higher education and research for a special Satellite Network to be established by ISRO through one Satellite Interactive Terminal (SIT) (via ISRO's educational satellite-EduSat) for linkages with lead universities in the USA, namely the University of California at Berkeley, State University of New York, Harvard University, Princeton University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Yale University, University of California at Santa Cruz; University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Cornell University, etc. with associated initiative of three leading technological companies in the world, namely Microsoft, Qualcomm and Cadence.

Hostels/ Halls of Residence

JGEC provides on-campus residential facilities to its students, faculty members and many of its staff. The students live in hostels (referred to as halls) throughout their stay in the JGEC. The five hostels/halls on campus accommodate 75% of its students.Out of them four of them are for male students and one is for the female students. They are namely (Effective from 2 June 2016):

Ragging in any form, physical or mental oppression is considered as a punishable offence in JGEC and the students implicated in such offence may be dealt with extreme punishment.

Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College provides a high technology campus in which almost every room of the college building and even each and every hostel is connected via LAN. An optical fibre backbone network connects hostels and the college building together. There is also a campus-wide wireless network that can be accessed from every corner of the campus. Nine wireless access points bind the campus with an invisible bond. Students and faculties can access the internet and other network services.

Festivals

JGEC has festivals like JECLAT and Sristi. JECLAT is the annual socio-cultural fest of JGEC. It is held near the time of "Holi" festival to organize an event called Rangotsav on the day of Holi.

JECLAT includes social and cultural competitions like Wall Painting competition, T-shirt painting competition, Sudoku, Creative writing, Roadies, Treasure Hunt, Chitrayan (photography & art exhibition and competition), Damsheraz (dumb charades), Dance Fest (inter-college dance competition), Music Fest (inter-college music competition), Band Blast (band music contest), Elementary (puzzle, quiz, etc. online contests) in addition to stage shows (known as Social night) in the final night of the week-long cultural fest has some of the most powerful performances of vocals and beats from renowned artists and Bollywood chartbusters and pop songs are hosted throughout the night.

The magnitude of JECLAT is huge and attracts an admirable participation from many colleges. The Anupam Roy Band & Rupam Islam's Fossils(Band) performed on 24 March 2016 in JECLAT 2016 "Social Night".

The techno-management festival of JGEC is known as Sristi. It is the biggest techno-management festival of North Bengal. Events include technical workshops, seminars, and competitions. Competitions under the banner of Robotics like Robosoccer, Firebird II, Eagle Claw and Mission Entente take place. Events like Hacking and coding competitions and Tech quiz takes place under the banner of Technozion. Various management events take place where famous industrialists enlighten the students. Various gaming competitions commonly take place during this three-day techno-management fest. Other than that, events like Theme Photography contest- Lens Flair, Chess competition, Sudoku competition and a special event exclusively for the Civil Engineers known as "Bridge the Gap" is held every year during Sristi.

Student Clubs and organisations

JGEC offers students the opportunity to participate in over 14 active clubs and organizations which focus on social, multicultural, political, professional, educational, athletic, community service, and wellness issues. Participation in these organizations offers the opportunity to take part in activities that interest them, affect change in the campus and local community. The college clubs form an integral part of the JGEC student life. Some of them are:

Centre for Innovation (CFI)

CFI was founded in August, 2008. It is the only club in JGEC campus that is autonomous. The CFI is headed by a student president. All kinds of innovative activities are in progress in CFI. Namely, students design embedded robots as well as manual robots. Apart from building robots, students with a business acumen can engaging in Business Plan activities. Besides all these, a college radio "RadioJolite" has been launched, where broadcasting of various college events occur.

The CFI takes the initiative to organize Sristi, the Annual Techno-Management Fest of the college. CFI has its own experimental lab and the construction of its own building is in progress beside the college gymnasium.

The classes of CFI are conducted in the scheduled classes of Mechanical Engineering Department. Recently the college's first quadcopter & an flying model of aeroplane has also been built by the CFI. The CFI team frequently participates in Tech fests of premier engineering colleges like IIT KGP, IIT Guwahati, IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi and IIT BHU and have bagged significant number of prizes. The CFI also organises a special event exclusively for the Civil Engineers known as "Bridge the Gap" every year during Sristi.

Magazine Club

The Magazine Club of JGEC is one of the oldest clubs of the college which aims at promoting creative thinking amongst the students and to inculcate in them the habit of writing.Under the guidance of the Magazine Committee, the Annual College Magazine is published that contains numerous technological and literary articles and sent to alumni across the globe and to students and faculty of the college and faculties internationally located.

Coder's Club

Coders, mainly an open knowledge forum/club is a part of JGEC that targets at increasing the popularity of different computer languages amongst all students and make them prepared for different coding, debugging contests and many other competition related to programming. Coder's club regularly organizes Programming competitions within the campus.

Sports Club

The Sports club functions under the supervision of physical instructors and is headed by a president who is nominated by the Principal from amongst the members of Faculty. The college cricket and football teams are selected by this club. The college has two main functional stadiums- The "Oval" cricket and Athletic stadium and The Football playground. Every year the Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College organises the Annual Sports Meet generally in the winter. JGEC also organises Cricket premier league (CPL) and Torneo de' Futbol every year, which observes participation from leading colleges in the state.

Trekking Club

JGEC Trekking Club is one of the most popular clubs in the campus being founded in 1989. The students have achieved remarkable feats over the years, with some of them to Goecha La(16406 ft), Singalila Ridge, Sandakphu(11,929 ft— the highest point in West Bengal), Falut (11800 ft), Neora Valley national Park (10600 ft) and Varsey Rhododendron Sanctuary.

Photography Club

Photography Club was one of the earliest clubs to be established, back in 1965. Since then, it has relentlessly pursued excellence in the field of film and digital photography. The club organizes training programmes in photography techniques and development every year. Activities are not limited just to the studio and darkroom. Since the college is situated in a very beautiful natural surrounding, regular photographic expeditions are organized.

Music Club

"Calliphony", the Music Club of Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College was formed to nurture musical talent among students. Membership is restricted to the students only.The Annual Music Fest is an eagerly awaited feature among the students.

Dance Club

The Dance Club at JGEC was founded with the aim of exercising the wonderful dance forms. The Dance Club undertakes regular rehearsals and practise sessions to nurture and enhance the talents present in the students of the college.

Drama Club- 'Azantrik'

The drama club Azantrik is one of the most active clubs in JGEC. It nurtures the talent of students in the field of dramatics. The annual drama and short film festival, held each year is a platform where spectacular acting talents are showcased and felicitated. Every year a team from Azantrik participates in the Inter-school and Inter-College drama Competition organised by Aneek Theatre Group at Yuva Bharati Krirangan annually. Workshops on theatre and dramatics are held each year under the guidance of reputed theatre artists of North Bengal.Ananda Bazar Patrika, Telegraph, Uttarbanga Sangbad etc has visited during the Drama fest namely "Depicta" .

Communication cell

The Communication Cell at JGEC, formed in January, 2011, is one of the newly formed student run components of the JGEC body that aims at enhancing interaction amongst all alumni and present students. It also aims to establish a healthy relationship with other technical and non-technical institutes all over the nation. It consistently maintains the database of all current students, alumni and other college information. It interacts with Press and media regarding all news and events of college.

Jyoti- The free Night Education Center

"Jyoti" is a Free Night Education Centre for Children run by the students of Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College (JGEC), under the students-run society called the "Centre of Social Welfare". The Jyoti was founded by a group of students of Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College from the batch of 2011 on 20 March 2010. There are many poor villages surrounding the Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College, where the need to earn money has left people uneducated and are not receiving the proper sense of education. This is the reason behind the creation of "Jyoti". The Jyoti operates from the "Main Building" premises from the fixed classes of Mechanical Engineering department and Computer Science and Engineering department buildings. The Jyoti is funded by the Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College and the Jyoti has been allotted a library for the use of its teachers. The teachers in Jyoti are students right from the First year to Fourth year. The classes are normally held on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 1630 hrs to 1930 hrs. Special classes for Joint Entrance Examinations and JEXPO are also provided for poor students.

Alumni

JGEC has various Alumni Associations set up at different places. The headquarter of all those Alumni Associations is the 'Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College Alumni Association' (JGECAA )', Jalpaiguri, having a registered office at JGEC campus involve themselves in campus based and national activities.

The JGEC Alumni Association got registration from Registrar of Societies West Bengal Act XXVI of 1961 vides No:-S/L/70053 of 2010-11. The Alumni Association functions from the College Administrative Building and a new convention centre (with Technology Seminar auditorium) called 'Kanchenjunga', exclusively for the Alumni Association is under construction. The Alumni Association conducts seminars, and workshops at campus, arrange platform for sponsoring scholarships and sporting events around the whole year. Prominent educationalists and professionals visit campus during seminars organized by the Alumni Association. The Association works in close association with students of JGEC and the college authorities. The Alumni Association also helps the family of distressed Alumni or current students of JGEC financially through 'Distressed Fund' of the Association.

Inter-class cricket tournament-'El Equipo', is one of the sporting event at JGEC organized and sponsored by the Alumni Association.

The Ex-officio Chairman of the Alumni Association is the Principal of the College. The incumbent chairman is Prof. Dr. Pradip Kumar Saha and the Secretary of the Association is Prof. Amaresh Dalal, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (alumni).

Notable alumni