The Department came into existences in
1958 with the establishment of the Faculty of Science in the University. Dr. Rajendra
Sahai was the founder Head of the Department. His successor, Prof. K.S. Bhargava
was an able administrator and meticulous performer as a teacher and researcher.
The department flourished well under his guidance and leadership. A number of
teachers like Prof. H.D. Kumar, Prof. P.K. Gupta, Prof. S.N. Mathur, Prof. S.N.
Dixit, Prof. R.S. Tripathi, Prof. R.R. Mishra, Prof. P.C. Mishra, Prof. S.N.Gupta,
Prof. R. Singh, Prof. Kamal, Prof. S.K. Singh and Prof. H.S. Srivastava who have
been the leading experts of the country in their respective areas contributed
to the development of teaching and research standard of the department.
The Department imparts botanical education at undergraduate and post graduate
levels and also provides Doctoral degree. The number of students which was initially
40 at post graduate level and 120 at undergraduate level, was increased to 50
and 180, respectively by the end of 2000. The department also offers facilities
for specialization at postgraduate level in several important areas such as (1)
Plant Pathology, (2) Plant Physiology, (3) Plant Taxonomy, (4) Forest Ecology,
(5) Genetics and (6) Environmental Management. The department also arranges annual
visit of M.Sc. Students to make them acquainted with the diversity of plant life
and vegetation of different regions of the country in addition to collection of
various plant materials.
The Department has been trying to maintain its
reputed standard of research activities in several fields mainly Mycology, Virology,
Plant Pathology, Herbal Pesticides, Plant Physiology, Forest & Grassland Ecology,
Biodiversity & Taxonomy, and is posed to start Phycology as well. The teachers
of the department have successfully completed a number to research projects funded
by DST, CRIS, UGC, ICAR, MOEN and ICRFE. The department served as one of the several
research centres for the international network of Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility
(TSBF) programme. Currently it has been credited to be one of the centres of All
India Coordinated Project on Eastern U.P. Agricultural Research Development, financed
by DST.
The Department has a fully maintained Botanical Garden of about
4 hectares where a few glasshouses and green houses are also situated. This garden
is an abode of wild and ornamental plants which includes some rare and precious
trees, shrubs, lianas and palm species. It caters to the need of the students
and scientists including agriculturists and field botanists of the region. There
is a fairly equipped departmental Library shelving over 5000 books, some of which
are quite rare and a few are out of prints. It can accommodate 50 persons at a
time. There is also a good collection of volumes of many reputed journals of different
botanical disciplines.
To enhance the social and educational extracurricular
activities a Botanical society is reestablished in the department during session
2003-04 after a long gap. This year Botanical society has organized local plant
study excursions for M. Sc. I., B.Sc. I, II and III students separately to adjoining
areas of Gorakhpur and neighboring districts. These excursions helped the students
to study the natural habitats of plants they are studying in their class rooms.
The Botanical society has also organized a Botanical photography, quiz, essay,
model and charts competitions. A large number of students have participated in
it. Society has a plan to organize invited lectures in different fields in the
Department.
We are planning to elevate the department to the level of Centre
of Advance Studies in Botany. A proposal for this is under preparation to be sent
to U.G.C.
We are running a course of Industrial Microbiology upto under
graduate level from the last five years. Now we are planning to start Postgraduate
classes in Industrial Microbiology from the next session.
