History

The Inspiring 125 Years’ Journey of Mahila Vidyalaya

Mahila Vidyalaya, besides being a well-known landmark of Lucknow, is also a very important part of its history as a visionary and pioneering institution that marked the beginning of the empowerment of the women of northern India by imparting to them quality education. It had its modest beginning in 1895 as "The Hindu Girls School" functioning from a rented house in Aminabad with only nine girls on its rolls. By the time its name was changed to Mahila Vidyalaya on February 26, 1922, the school had already moved into its own building at the present location, which was inaugurated on March 9, 1921 by Shri CY Chintamani, the then Education Minister of the "United Province of Agra & Oudh". Over the 125 years of its existence, this institution has evolved constantly and is one of the oldest and largest teaching institutions for girls today in northern India. It became a High School in 1928, was granted recognition for Intermediate in 1939 and finally as Mahila Vidyalaya Degree College. It is an associated college of the University of Lucknow. L.T. & B.Ed courses were started in 1952, B.Sc. courses in 1962, B.Com in 1983, B.Sc. (Home Science) courses in 1985 etc. The College started Self-Finance Courses in Computer Science and Statistics in 2001.

The College is steered by two principals - one for its intermediate part and the other for degree. The current incumbents are Ms. Poonam Khanna for the former and Mrs. Nisha Gupta for the latter. The overall management of the College is overseen by a Managing Committee presently headed by Shri Alok Ranjan, former Chief Secretary of the State of Uttar Pradesh as its President and Dr. Anil K Srivastava as its Secretary and Manager. At this stage we would like to gratefully acknowledge the contributions made by various principals to the development of the college at different points of time. Among them Ms. EM Dubey, a well known Gandhian, Dr. Kanchan Lata Sabharwal, Dr. Manorama Tiwari, and Dr. Sarita Verma deserve a special mention.

The College firmly believes in imparting holistic education, which extends to not only teaching the students their chosen subjects, but also developing their personalities and imparting to them new skills with a view to assisting them either in developing their entrepreneurial skills or improving their prospects of securing a good career. With this end in view, the College has recently set up two institutes styled as Institute of Career & Professional Studies and Institute of Skill Development & Vocational Studies.

The former is intended to train our students in personality development and the latter will impart training in different vocational skills in collaboration with expert institutes like UPTEC and VLCC. The College has excellent track record of combining academic and extra-curricular activities through NSS, NCC, Departmental Students’ Council, Ela Kaul Kamal Srijan Peeth and various clubs.

A large number of Alumni of Mahila College have become torch bearers in their chosen fields. Some notable alumni are Prof. Roop Rekha Verma, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Lucknow (LU); Prof Rashmi Roychoudhury, former Professor, Department of Botany, LU and currently Senior Vice President of the College’s Managing Committee; Prof Usha Sinha, former Professor & Head, Department of Linguistics Hindi, LU; Prof Abha Awasthi, former Professor & Head, Department of Sociology, LU; Dr. Vandana Prasad, Director Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences; Rocket woman of India,

Dr. Ritu Karidhal, ISRO’s Mission Director, Chandrayan-2; Hon’ble Justice of Allahabad High Court, Smt. Shobha Dixit; Prof. (Smt.) Premwati Tewari, Former MP; famous poetess and former Professor & Head of Hindi Department, Jodhpur University, Late Dr Rama Singh; Dr. Saroj Srivastava, famous Gynaecologist; Dr. Navlata, renowned Sanskrit poetess; Ms. Maya Govind, poetess and film lyricist etc.

In its journey of 125 years so far, the College has been fortunate to receive guidance from a very large number of eminent persons which helped it in its evolution. While the number is too large to enumerate, we would like to especially acknowledge the contributions of Babu Ganga Prasad Verma, a Member of Indian National Congress and a notable philanthropist; Shri Gokaran Nath Misra and Sir Bisheshwar Nath Srivastava Hon’ble Justice and Chief Justice respectively of the Chief Court of Oudh; Babu Vishambhar Nath Srivastava, Chairman, Lucknow Municipal Board; renowned advocate, Rai Bahadur Babu Ram Prasad Verma; Chairman, All India Bar Council, Babu Har Govind Dayal Srivastava; Babu Triloki Singh, one of the founders of Praja Socialist Party; the First Mayor of Lucknow,

Babu Raj Kumar Srivastava; renowned advocates Shri Anant Prasad Nigam, Shri Girja Shankar Srivastava; a well known personality of his own time, Bhupendra Nath Srivastava, popularly known as Bhuppi Babu; renowned Orthopedic Surgeon Padmashri Dr. B.N. Sinha; renowned Surgeon & former Mayor of Lucknow, Padmashri Dr. S.C. Rai; Hon’ble Justice of Allahabad High Court Shri Umesh Chandra Srivastava; and renowned Senior Advocate & former Advocate General of UP, Babu Umesh Chandra etc.

We welcome our students and assure them that we will always be there for them not only today but at all times in future. We also urge them to make full use of the facilities provided by the College while they are with us.