মানব সেবাই আমার মূল ধর্ম Shirajul Islam Chowdhury Comilla Victoria College is one of the oldest and renowned colleges in Comilla as well as in Chittagong division. It is the pride of the people of Comilla. The college is located on 29 acres of land including its intermediate and honors section. Comilla Victoria College started its journey with only 107 students and 7 teachers. There was only intermediate section at the time of beginning of the college and later honours section was started in 1918. Landlord of that time Roy Bahadur Anandra Chandra Roy had established the college on 24 September 1899. Anandra Chandra Roy was a renowned patron of promoting and developing education in the district. A white color sculpture was built in front of the main gate of intermediate section of the college to keep the memory of Roy Bahadur alive. Queen Victoria was the Empress of India from 1876 to 1901. At that time, Comilla was also under the rule of the empire hence the college was named as “Comilla Victoria College.” Mr. Satyandra Nath Basu was its first principal. Until 1947, the college was affiliated to Calcutta University. Between 1925 and 1947 it offered three-year honours programmes in English, Mathematics, Sanskrit, Politics, Economics and Arabic. The college introduced Bachelor of Science courses in 1942 and Bachelor of Commerce courses in 1956. Honours courses in Political Science, Physics, Chemistry, Accounting and Management were introduced in 1971-72. Masters Programme in Bangla and Economics started in 1973. ICMA program was started from 1982. It gained the dignity of a University College during 1984-1985. In 1996, the college had honours courses in 16 subjects. The college was nationalised in 1968. In 1962-63, the degree section of the college was shifted to its new campus at Dharmapur, which is three kilometers away from the old campus at Ranir Dighi. The old campus now houses the offices of the principal and vice-principal, teachers' room, principal's residence, gymnasium, auditorium, library, and science laboratories. The new campus has five new buildings and these are used for academic activities. At present, there are about 2,500 students in intermediate section and 13,000 students in degree section and 147 teachers in this college against 150 posts, of whom 36 are women. It has five dormitories - four for boys and one for girls. About one thousand students reside in these dormitories. Students of this College face acute accommodation problem. Only five halls are not sufficient for huge students. As a result, most of the students have to stay in rented rooms in town at a very high cost. There are six buses for the students of which one bus is run with Govt. fund and rest five buses are run with college fund. There is also a microbus for the teachers. The number of transport needs to be increased to meet the growing demand. A computer Laboratory is going to be built to increase the technology knowledge of students. The Govt. has offered some financial support for this purpose. It has a library where 9 daily newspapers are kept and there are 2100 academic books. But no magazines and journals are subscribed. Comilla Victoria College has produced a large number of scholars, teachers, civil servants, physicians, engineers, politicians and social activists. Students of this college now take part in Rover Scouting and BNCC activities. They also take part in inter-college tournaments, competitions and regularly take part in debate. They won many prizes from BTV and others debate competitions. Bangladesh National Cadet Core (BNCC), Rover Scouts are also working at the college. Sandhani and Badhon, two leading blood donation organizations of the country regularly organise blood donation programmes on the campus where students and teachers participate voluntarily. Different cultural programmes are also organized on various occasions. Victoria College Chhatra Sangshad played a vital role during the 1952 language movement and1962 movement against Ayub Khan. Many students of this College joined the Bangladesh liberation war in 1971. At least 334 students participated in the war of whom 35 sacrificed their lives for the noble cause. Major Rafiqul Islam, Saheed Khaza Nizam uddin got the recognition of "Bir Uttom’’ and Lieutenant Colonel Akbar Hossain, Saheed Abdul Momin got “Bir Protik” respectively who were the students of this college. Advocate Abdul Matin Khosru, Prof. Ali Asraf, AHM Mostafa Kamal (Lotus Kamal), AKM Baha Uddin Baher also participated in the war, were students of this college. A memorial has been built inside the college campus commemorating the sacrifice of these freedom fighters. 01611-008469 Shirajul Islam Chowdhury Comilla Press Club e-mail .