Better late than never. With about 12 years left for the oldest college in upper Assam and the second oldest in the State to celebrate its centenary, Jagannath Barooah College here has decided to form its alumni association.
The Principal of the College, Bimal Barah has invited the alumni to a meeting to be held at 12 noon on Saturday (May 5) in a hall of the College. He will address the meeting and offer his advice in this regard.
The purpose of the meeting is to organise the alumni into an association and discuss other matters of importance.
Former students who are residing in countries outside India or those who cannot make it to the meeting can register themselves as alumni by logging on www.jbcollege.org.in and depositing Rs 200.
J B College was first named Upper Assam College and later Jorhat College on September 4, 1930. On June 25, 1938, during a meeting under the then president, Chandradhar Barooah, it was renamed to the present Jagannath Barooah College in recognition of the donation of a very large building, Borpatra Kutir along with the land by Murulidhar Barooah.
Murulidhar Barooah had inherited this property from his grandfather Jagannath Barooah, who was the first graduate of Upper Assam in 1872 from Presidency College, Calcutta.
J B College has gone from strength to strength and received autonomy in 2015 from the UGC. This enabled it to redesign it’s syllabi of subjects without taking approval from the affiliated University, Dibrugarh University.
In 2011 and again in 2018, Himanta Biswa Sarma as state education minister first in the Congress led government and then in the BJP led had announced the upgradation of the JB College into a University or lead university of a university cluster.
Personalities like former three time chief minister Tarun Gogoi, former five time Union minister BK Handique (late) and former Dibrugarh University vice-chancellor late Mukunda Madhab Sarmah were students of the college that had teachers like former parliamentarian Hem Baruah and litterateur Padmabhusan Syed Abdul Malik.
