Published On : Mon, Jul 6th, 2015

Historic moment for city as Hislop gets heritage tag

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Nagpur: One of the oldest colleges in the city, Hislop College has been accorded heritage status by the University Grants Commission (UGC), which grants heritage status to educational institutions with an aim to conserve college campuses that are more than a century old.
With its heritage tag, the college is eligible to receive financial assistance for its conservation. Principal of Hislop College, Dr Dipti Christian, while speaking to Lokmat Times, said, “It is a very happy moment and we feel honoured to serve the society for the cause of education, The heritage status has increased our responsibility towards conservation of the heritage college.”

She further informed that now the college would be able to start specialised courses related to its heritage status. The college would start a certificate course on the contribution of the founder of the college Stephen Hislop to the field of education in Vidarbha.

She also informed that the college had sent proposal to the UGC for according heritage tag to it under the Heritage College Scheme. Representatives of the college had been to Delhi also for presentation and interview. Their efforts bore fruit with the college getting heritage status.

Many reputed persons have studied from Hislop College, making their name not only in Maharashtra, but internationally. One such student was Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar who went on to become the second chief of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Apart from him, social worker and Magsaysay Award recipient Baba Amte, former Prime Minister of India P V Narasimha Rao, freedom fighter and first chief minister of CP & Berar Ravishankar Shukla, political thinker Ashish Nandi, first vice-chancellor of Delhi University Hari Singh Gour, renowned scientist Shekhar Mande, renowned Marathi author Purushottam Bhave, film maker Rajkumar Hirani, actor Shahbaz Khan, actress Pooja Banerjee, former Union minister Mukul Wasnik, former union minister Vilas Muttemwar, former minister Anees Ahmed and former minister Nitin Raut are the renowned personalities who studied from the college. Stephen Hislop laid the foundation

The college was named after Scottish missionary Stephen Hislop. Hislop was a noted evangelist, educationist and geologist. He worked for 18 years in the Vidarbha region alongside Robert Hunter, editor of the Encyclopedic Dictionary. After learning Marathi language for 15 months, the college was first set up in the Mahal area of Nagpur in the year 1883.The college was affiliated to the University of Calcutta until 1904 and later to Allahabad University. In 1923, it was one of the six colleges affiliated to the University of Nagpur. The college was then expanded and shifted to Civil Lines area.

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