Introduction


Ranchi Agricultural College (RAC) was established as the second agricultural institution in Bihar, India. The first such institution was Bihar Agricultural College established in 1945 at Sabour in the district of Bhagalpur. The urgency for another agriculture college soon became apparent as the needs of the plateau region of South Bihar varied greatly from the rest of plains of Bihar. Therefore, to address the unmet agricultural needs of this region, a second college was established in 1955.RAC is located at Kanke, Ranchi which is 10 Kilometers from downtown Ranchi and 20 Kilometers from the Ranchi Airport. RAC is a premier institution of the Jharkhand region offering both undergraduate and postgraduate programs in multiple disciplines.

The main objective behind the establishment of the agricultural faculty was:

To build a sound foundation of basic agricultural sciences.
To allow students to explore the planning, cultivation and economics of raising crops.
To develop professional skills in the farming community and the allied professionals.

These objectives have continuously been achieved through training under various disciplines such as Agronomy, Soil Science, Pant Breeding & Genetics, Plant Pathology, Agricultural Physics & Meteorology, Horticulture and Agricultural Economics. The first batch of students graduated from RAC in 1958. Since then, every year students have joined the workforce after obtaining the graduate and postgraduate degrees from RAC. The Alumni of RAC (subsequently of the Birsa Agricultural University), are spread all over the globe; making an impact not just in India but around the world and they have proudly held high positions in both government and private sectors.

Birth of ARAC


On several occasions, the Alumni of RAC had met and realized the importance of an Association of their own and for a formal Annual meet. The Alumni of 1961 batch were more active in crystallizing the idea of an Association. However, as per Dr.K.K.Sahay, 1961 batch (article published in ARAC-2016 Souvenir), “it is difficult to believe that the idea of having an annual meet/get together of RAC graduates came around September 2002 at Niagara Falls, USA” There he met his batch mate, Dr. Shyamalendu Sarkar, serving as Chairman of Agril. Economics Division of Saginaw University and discussed about an alumni chapter. Dr. Sahay discussed the matter with some of his other batchmates and a couple of seniors located at Ranchi and Delhi. Subsequently the idea materialized into action and the first formal meeting of Alumni of Ranchi Agricultural College was held in the auditorium of RAC on December 28, 2003 under the presidentship of the then Dean Dr. A.K.Sarkar. During this meeting, late Sri.PriyaNath Verma (1960) and Sri. Birendra Prasad (1961) were asked to take responsibility for the alumni registration. In 2006, Mr. Verma nominated Dr. Sarkar for drafting the constitution. Dr. Sarkar rewrote the entire material with vast improvements which was later adopted by the general body meeting of alumni on November 20, 2008 wherein Dr. M.A. Mohsin, Dr. Kishore Kumar, Sri. Ranoj Dasgupta, Ashok Kumar, Late Dr. Ashok Kumar Mitra, Sri. Birendra Prasad and few other alumni (mostly from 1961 batch) participated very actively. Finally, the Association became a formal legal body with Registration No. 617 on November 11, 2009, in terms of Registrar General of Cooperatives, Government of Jharkhand, and Ranchi. Since then the RAC Alumni meet has been organized every year with the exception of two years in between. The 2016 meeting was organized on a grand scale by the sitting President, Dr. Abdul Wadood, on February 27-28, 2016.

The need for ARAC Website


An Alumnus of 1966 batch, Dr. B K. Singh developed a website for ARAC which was linked to his professional firm, WeatherSys in 2015 However, in spite of the fact that there are several websites available for free on the Internet where any alumnus of any institution can register, there is no website of ARAC of its own. During the last meeting of General Body, it was decided that ARAC should have its own website. The responsibility to design and develop a website of ARAC, which should enable an Alumnus to freely register and search for their colleagues, seniors and juniors, based on the last name or the year of graduation from The Alma Mater, was given in the last meeting to Shafiq Mallick (76) who was helped by Shailendra K. Fauji (76), Mahesh C. Pathak (77) and finally edited by Susmita Srivastava (97).

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