About Bhatter College, Dantan in Chaulia, P.O. Dantan, Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal, India, Dantan

About Dantan
Dantan, located on the southern border of West Bengal amidst a charming natural environment, is a thriving rural town having a rich cultural heritage which can be traced back to the ancient times. The name itself seems to have been derived from the elusive ancient Dandabhukti province and recent excavations at Mogholmari suggest that the Dantan might have been the capital of the province. The discovery of the largest Buddhist monastery at Mogholmari also points to the fact that the place might have derived its name from Dantapur Mahabihar the reference to which is found in a Sinhalese Buddhist text. Popular belief however is that Sri Chaitanya reportedly stayed here on his journey to Neelachala and brushed his teeth and thus the place got its name. That Sri Chaitanya passed through this ancient trade-cum-pilgrim route is historically true, and various place names allude to a rich past. Further researches will surely unearth many important things in future.

About the College
The 5th Dec. 1963 is a red letter day in the chronicle of Dantan, for, on this very day Bhatter College came in to being to translate into a reality the long cherished desire of the people belonging to all walks of life to receive higher education. Sri Mathuranth Bhatter, a noted businessman and social worker of Dantan who donated Rs.1,01,101.00 made this gigantic feat possible. The College was named after its honoured creator. Moreover, the people of this locality keenly interested in higher education, also collected donations from various comers for further development of the college.

Miss Ava Maity and Sri Prodyot Kumar Mohanty were the President and Secretary of the first Governing Body of this College respectively. Among other members of the G.B. the role of Late Charu Chandra Mohanty, Late Dasarathi Pati, Late Devendra Nath Das, Sankar Prasad Roy the then B.D.O. Dantan Block, Sri Narendra Nath Biswas, Dayalal Pujara was really worth mentioning. Sri Narendra Nath Biswas was the first acting Principal of the college.
In 1964 Late Birendra Nath Ghosal joined this College as permanent Principal. During the tenure of his service Honours courses in Bengali and Political Science were introduced in the College in 1965 and 1966 respectively with affiliation from Calcutta University. Principal Ghosal’s sincere effort for introducing Sanskrit Hons. in the College become subsequently fruitful.

From 1971 to 1980 Dr. Santosh Kumar Bhattacharyya, Ex Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University and Ex-Head of the Department of Economics, Calcutta University, acted as the President of Governing Body of the College. Dr. Bhattacharyya made untiring efforts and took pioneering attempts towards the total development of the College. It was due to his sole endeavour that B.Com. Courses were introduced in this College in 1979. The College will remain ever indebted to Dr. Bhattacharyya and Sri Anil Basak, Secretary, West Bengal College and University Teachers’ Association for yeoman service they rendered for the amelioration of the present Institute.

In 1980 Dr. Saroj Kumar Roy, an educationist of Dantan became the president of the Governing Body. He tried his level best for the all-round progress of the College. Under his ingenious leadership on 2nd December 1987 Dr. Mrityunjoy Bhanja was appointed Principal of the College on recommendation of W.B. College Service Commission. After the retirement of Dr. Bhanja on 09.01.1997, the charge of the College was taken over by Prof. A. K. Pramanik, Prof. B. D. Santra, Prof. A. Mabud and Prof. R. N. Dinda Successively. In the 25th of June, 2003 Dr. Pabitra Kumar Mishra joined the college as Principal and continues the process of development and expansion of this institution.

The College at the Golden Jubilee Year
Since its inception in the year 1963, the college has been rendering its service of spreading higher education amongst this vast rural population. The college has in the meantime added many new subjects to its curriculum and imparts honours courses in i. Bengali, ii. English, iii. Sanskrit, iv. History, v. Political Science, vi. Philosophy, vii. Geography, viii. Economics ix. Music and x. Education, and General Courses in i. Bengali, ii. English, iii. Sanskrit, iv. History, v. Political Science, vi. Philosophy, vii. Geography, viii. Economics, ix. Music, x. Education, xi. Physical Education, and xii. Mathematics in the Arts Stream, and the Commerce Stream offers all General subjects and Honours in Financial Accounting. The college also offers General course in Science stream with Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. To make the education affordable and easily accessible to the rural poor students of our college, the College Governing Body has withdrawn course fees and additional tuition fees from all the subjects which were Self-financing in nature earlier. Students pay less for pursuing subjects like Geography (Hons. & Gen.), Music (Hons. & Gen.), Education (Hons. & Gen.), Physical Education (Gen.) and in the Science stream.

A PG Study Centre under Rabindra Bharati University has been established, offering M.A courses in 10 subjects through distance mode for the students of this locality, who find it difficult to pursue M.A Courses in far-off places.
Vocational courses in X+2 level and in VIII+ level under West Bengal Council of Vocational Education and Training was introduced, offering various ET courses to provide an opportunity to the rural youth to gain vocational knowledge in IT sector for becoming job-worthy and self-reliant.

In addition to our normal routine class work, UGC sponsored Remedial Coaching facility is available in the college for the socially disadvantaged students mostly belonging to S.C/S.T communities as well as other educationally disadvantaged students. Moreover, to make our students job-worthy, the college is running UGC sponsored Coaching Classes for Entry in Services. Besides that, an innovative step of Compulsory Computer Literacy for all the students has been launched. UGC, New Delhi has approved three Certificate Courses and one Foundation Course under Career Oriented Program such as: 1. Certificate Course in E-Commerce; 2. Certificate Course in Communicative English; 3. Certificate Course in Tax Procedure; and 4.Foundation Course in Human Rights, 5. Non-Formal Certificate Course in Sanskrit Learning under MHRD, Govt. of India.

With a view to the historical importance of Dantan as the capital of ancient Dandabhukti and recent archaeological findings, the college has set up UGC-sponsored Buddhist Studies Centre which has undertaken interdisciplinary works.
This year the college has established Bhatter College Private Industrial Training Institute (ITI) in order to provide employment opportunities to the local youth and two trades i. Fitter and ii. Electrician will be started from this year.
A multi-purpose outdoor stadium is under construction and construction of one indoor stadium will commence shortly.
To enhance the academic standard of the students, the college has a rich Central Library and a spacious reading room attached to it. In addition to that Departmental Libraries have been established in each Honours teaching department. A state-of-the-art new Library Building is under construction and it will provide open access and digital facilities to the students from this session.

To make it an ideal rural college, where students will have an opportunity of their all-round development, a Free Health Check-up Centre runs in the college from 2 pm to 4 pm every day, except Saturday. Keeping an eye on the students’ welfare, the college has a clean and hygienic canteen, one hostel for boys, one hostel for girls, a students’ support centre, pay phone, cold drinking water facilities, postal service inside the campus, photocopy facility, generator for uninterrupted power supply and a play ground with sports facilities.

It is heartening to note that the college has been identified along with 140 colleges in the country, including 12 colleges in West Bengal as a “College with Potential for Excellence” during XI Plan period. Only college other than ours in Vidyasagar University to be honoured with this status is Midnapore College. This recognition is a proud testimony of the achievements incurred by the students, teachers, non-teaching staff and management of the college during last three years. This also imposes on the stake holders of the college to maintain the standard and to lead ahead in future.
The session 2012-13 marks the Golden Jubilee of the College (1963—2012) and we will celebrate it with various programmes and functions throughout the academic session.