History of Mariani College
Mariani is a small town in Jorhat district of Assam, situated in the foothills bordering Nagaland, surrounded by lush tea gardens. The town is inhabited by an amalgamation of diverse ethnic groups of people, belonging to different cultures of India. Due to the conscious efforts of the local people, an educational environment flourished in this town since its inception. As a result of which, several secondary schools were established within the town to fulfill the need. But since there was a dearth of higher educational institutions in the area, the students who completed their secondary and senior secondary education had to go to distant places in order to pursue their higher studies. However, many economically backward students, who wished to study further could not fulfill their dreams. Many of them had to discontinue their studies and look for other options of livelihood.
The need for establishment of a higher educational institution was felt by the socially conscious people and with proactive leadership of eminent people of the locality, a meeting was convened at Mahadev Agarwalla High School in the month of March 1966. Late Tuaram Dutta Sir (former Headmaster of Mahadev Agarwalla School), Late Sarveswar Bordoloi (freedom fighter and labour leader) and many other respectable citizens convened the meeting. People from neighbouring villages like Nagajanka, Barhani and Nakchari and many tea garden employees were also invited to the meeting. With the active participation and insightful suggestions from all members present, it was unanimously decided that there was a need for the establishment of a college and accordingly, a committee was formed by the members present at the meeting. The Members elected Late Sarveswar Bordoloi as President and Late Tuaram Dutta as Secretary of the committee.
Thus began the journey of the formation of Mariani College. The founding members initially faced many hurdles - lack of finances, proper classroom space, reluctance of the students to join a newly established college, recruitment of qualified teachers, arrangement of salaries, etc. But gradually with the able leadership of the committee, all these problems were met efficiently. In order to build a permanent classroom, the committee had to collect money from local traders, craft workers, tea garden workers, owners and many generous people from Jorhat subdivision who showed interest in uplifting the educational scene of Mariani. The plot of land where the new campus of the college currently stands, was donated by the Hunuwal Tea Estate (Mcleod and Russel group). Many helping hands from the tea gardens of the locality came forward and lent their financial support for infrastructure and classroom development of the college.
The Arts and commerce stream of the College was brought under deficit grant by the government of Assam in the year 1975 and provincialised in the year 2005. However, the science stream was provincialised later in the year 2013.
Presently, Mariani College is a NAAC B+ organization with all the three streams ( Arts, Science and Commerce) distributed among two campuses (old and new) accommodating more than 2000 aspiring students of the locality.
The present teaching and non-teaching fraternity and all members associated to the organization will be ever grateful to the local conscious people who took initiative, the donors, well wishers and persistent hard work of the managing committee without which such a mammoth task would have never been possible. Last but not least, the institution remains ever grateful to the founder teachers as well as the non-teaching staff of the College whose hard work and sacrifice is priceless.
