MBB College - History

History

Maharaja Bir Bikram College (MBB College) started functioning in 1947 to meet the needs of college students who had migrated to Tripura from erstwhile East Pakistan. The-then Regent, Mata Maharani Kanchan Prava Devi, responded to the SOS call of these uprooted Bengali students and almost overnight obtained the affiliation of Calcutta University for IA, ISC, B.A. and B. Com. examination.

The last of the Maharajas, Maharaja Bir Bikram Manikya Bahadur, had planned to establish a college at Agartala as early as 1937. An area of 254 acres of land (mostly Khas land plus a small acquired position) was earmarked for the college in the eastern part of the-then small capital town of Agartala. It was given the name " Vidyapattan". Construction began in 1937 for which a Trusty Board was formed. The construction had to be abandoned when World War II broke out and the ground floor was converted into an army hospital for the British Army moving to and from Burma.

From the beginning, MBB College was affiliated to Calcutta University. Today the college offers instruction in 19 subjects namely English, Bengali, Sanskrit, History, Education, Political Science, Economics, Philosophy, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Statistics, Botany, Zoology, Physiology, Psychology and Commerce (all in Pass and Honours standard), and Hindi and Sociology (both in Pass standard only).

In the late 1960s and early 1970s there was a plan to upgrade MBB College into a postgraduate college, so postgraduate classes in History, Economics and Mathematics were started. The plan lapsed when Tripura was sanctioned by the UGC as a Postgraduate Centre of Calcutta University in lieu of a full fledged university. In 1986 this Postgraduate Centre evolved into Tripura’s own university