The Maharani Lal Kunwari P.G. College, Balrampur commonly known by its abbreviated name, as M.L.K. College, stands named after the revered mother of the Founder of the College, Rajarshi Late Sir Maharaja Pateshwari Pasad Singh Ji of Balrampur . This college sprang up like an oasis in the educational desert in this region extending from Gorakhpur on one side and Lucknow on the other. In the year 1955, the year of the inauguration of the college, this was the only college imparting instruction at the Degree level in the seven districts of Eastern Uttar Pradesh - Balrampur , Gonda, Shrawasti, Bahraich, Siddharthnagar, Sant Kabir Nagar and Basti. Colleges which now exist in these districts, came up much after and much later. Not only has the M.L.K. College this feather to its cap of being the first Degree standard college in this area but even more creditable is the fact that this college initially started with both the Faculties - Arts and Science and in the Faculty of Science with both the groups - Mathematics and Biology. Colleges generally limp on for years to attain such a status while this college lept up to this stature at its very inception. The credit for this goes to the magnificence and benevolence of the Late Maharaja Saheb of Balrampur , Maharaja Sir Pateshwari Prasad Singh Ji and to the sane Counsel extended to him by his advisers. That saintly gentleman Maharaja Pateshwari Prasad Singh Ji needed nothing for himself, lived a simple unostentatious life, but was ever deeply caring and concerned about the welfare of the people of his state. The opening of the M.L.K. Degree College at Balrampur was only in the line of his thoughts -the greater good of the greater number.

Balrampur had been a Zamindari Estate - of course, one of the biggest in India, second only perhaps to Darbhanga in Bihar. Zamindari system got abolished after our country won independence and Balrampur also had to suffer that fate. But while the other Zamindars got busy using all their means in pooling together their resources, here was the magnanimous Maharaja of Balrampur who was donating buildings worth crores of rupees for the establishment of a Degree College and equipping its Science Laboratories with the finest of fittings, its class-rooms with the best of furnitures and its Library with a large number of rare manuscripts and the latest books. Students were being provided with hostels and teachers with residences. All this expenditure incurred in the rennovation of the buildings to suit the needs of a college and its equipments and fittings cannot easily be evaluated rightly and exactly but can only be estimated to be running into several lacs and the total worth of the buildings put at the disposal of the college initially would easily go into a few crores even at the rate as in existence in the year 1955. Later on, as the college grew from year to year and the number of students and teachers began to swell, more buildings and still more buildings were given over to the college. The college opened the B.Ed.(Teacher's Training) classes in the year 1961.

During the period 1961-1970, the grants nearly of Rs. 26 lacs were procured from U.G.C. and State and Central Governments. With these grants well furnished and well equipped commodious laboratories for all the four science departments were got constructed, a large well furnished Reading Room was added to the Library and the departments were provided with the best of equipments, apparatuses and books and Journals.

After herculean efforts the college started Post-Graduate classes in the year 1970-71 and 1971-72 in as many as eight subjects (four subjects of the Arts Faculty - Hindi, Sanskrit, Political Science and Geography and four subjects of the Science faculty- Physics, Chemistry, Botany and Mathematics). The founder of College the late Maharaja Saheb made available his entire City Palace, a building adjacent to the college and one of unique architectural beauty and of unimaginable cost at the present rates, to the college to house these additional faculties and classes and to accommodate additional teachers. Seeing the increasing importance of computer education a P.G. Diploma Course in Computer Application was started in 1980. In the same way a new subject named Seed Technology was added in faculty of Science in 1990 under the financial assistance scheme of vocational subject of U.G.C.

To inculcate the competitive skills and vocational aptitude in students and to make them uptodate in general studies, a competitive and Vocational Information Centre and Employment Bureau has been established in the College in 2003. The Bureau has a well furnished reading room and provides the facility of consulting the competitive books/ magazines/employment news to the students.

Now in the Golden Jubilee Year i.e. 2004-2005, the College has started P.G. Classes in Zoology and Psychology and opened a new Faculty i.e. Commerce on October 15, 2004.So this college could boast of the most magnificent and commodious buildings which no college in this part of Uttar Pradesh could claim to have. The then Governor of Uttar Pradesh, Sri K.M. Munshi, had come to inaugurate this college in August 1955 and on his return, he recorded in his renowned Kulpatis Letters dated August 28, 1955, published by the Bhartiya Vidya Bhawan, his impressions about this College in the following words -

This college is one of the few to which I have been able to give affiliation with pleasure. It is well housed, well furnished - none of which characteristics are usually to be found with new colleges in Uttar Pradesh.

This initial commendation from the Governor - Chancellor has ever helped this college to stand in good stead ever after.

The management of the college was entrusted by the founder to his trusted and most respectable gentlemen, headed by the District Magistrate, Gonda as President - Ex-officio. After creation of District Balrampur the bye-laws of the Management Committee has been ammended in the year 2000 to the extent that the President will be elected from amongst the members of the committee. Now the management is headed by Justice Sri U.C. Srivastava (Retired). The management fully and faithfully worked on to fulfil the aspirations of the founder. Credit for giving this college a firm and sound take of, goes to its first Secretary/Manager Sri Ali Jarrar Zafri whose every moment was spent in his concern how this institution may grow from strength to strength. He happend to have been the manager of the ' Balrampur Raj' as well and in that capacity, did his best to enable the college to get helped, particularly financially, at all junctures. After his death on Sept., 16, 1971, Sri A.P.Singh took over as secretary/manager and managed the affairs upto 1987. In 1987 Sri B.M.Dixit was nominated as secretary and there after in 1992 Sri Azad Singh took over as secretary of the management who worked upto 1995. In 1995 the Ex- Principal of this college and of Bareilly College, Bareilly Dr. P.P.Singh has been given the charge of the Secretary. During his regime (1995-1998) the College witnessed a change in developmental work by adding cement concrete roads in the campus and L.P. Gas connection in Chemistry Lab. In 1998, Col. B.S.Manral took over the charge of Secretary of the College and worked till July 11, 2003. On July 12, 2003 Sri G.B.Singh took over the charge of the secretary/manager and is managing the affairs of the college with full unanimity and benevolence.

Dr.M.P. Mathur who had been head of the Economics Deptt. at the D.A.V. College, Kanpur came as the first Principal of the College in 1955. He stayed just for one year and returned back to join his old institution. There after Sri R.K.Vaish who had been head of the Mathematics Deptt. at Bareilly College, Bareilly was appointed Principal in the year 1956. He remained on the post for five years and on attaining the age of superannuation retired on June, 30, 1961.

Sri A.K. Chaturvedi who had been one of the founder teacher and Vice Principal of the College was given the appointment on the post on July,1, 1961,. from which position he retired on June, 30, 1984. There after Dr.P.P.Singh who has exhorted experience of running this college during the difficult period, took over the charge of Principal on July, 1, 1984. He worked upto June, 1986 where after Dr. B.G. Sahi was appointed on the post after his selection from U.P. Higher Education Service Commission, Allahabad as Principal. After serving the institution for 12 years he retired on June, 30, 1998. On July, 1, 1998 Dr. I.M.Pandey, Head, Deptt. of Chemistry took over as the officiating Principal and worked upto March, 2001.

On May, 4, 2001 the author of this article Dr.Onkar Prasad Mishra who has been the student of the college (1969-1973) and has been working in the college as lecturer in the deptt. of Geography since April, 30, 1974 joined as Principal after his selection from U.P. Higher Education Service Commission and placement from the Directorate of Higher Education, Allahabad.

A college with such fine labs and so well furnished and well equipped library is a rare phenomenon but the M.L.K. College could boast of being that phenomenon. The college ever had the potentialities of growth and still has. It should meet the challenge of the age in the field of higher and job-oriented education.

The college has the unique privilege of having highly distinguished dignitaries of the administrative, academic and literary fields visiting the college at the different times and on different occasions. The Vice Chancellors of the Universities with which this college remained affiliated at different stages, liked to visit this college. The college had initially got affiliated in 1955 with the Agra University and the then Vice-Chancellor Sri K.B. Bhatnagar visited it. The college was later on shifted for affiliation to the Gorakhpur University and the Vice-Chancellors, Sri B.N.Jha, Sri Madan Mohan, Sri Devendra Sharma enjoyed their visits to the college.

The college was again shifted for affiliation in 1975 to Dr. R.M.L.Avadh University, Faizabad and the Vice Chancellors, Prof. Surendra Singh, Dr. A.P. Mehrotra, Dr.A.C. Banerjee, Dr.R.B.Mishra, Prof. K.P. Nautiyal, Prof. Angane Lal, G.C. Saxena Prof. Ram Achal Singh and Dr. S.B. Singh visited the college. We are privileged enough of having Dr. S. B. Singh, Vice Chancellor, Dr. R.M.L. Avadh University, Faizabad as chief guest of our 21st convocation of the college on 19th of February, 2005

The Governor-Chancellors - Sri K.M.Munshi, Sri B.Ram Krishna Rao, Sri Bishwanath Das, Sri B. Gopala Reddy, Sri Akbar Ali, the Vice President of India - Gopal Swaroop Pathak and Human Resource Development Minister Sri Arjun Singh, State Minister of Home Affairs Swami Sri Chinmayanand, the Chief Ministers of U.P. - Sri C.B.Gupta, Dr. Sampurnanand, Smt. Sucheta Kripalani, the State Education Ministers Sri Kailash Prakash, Sri Ram Ji Lal Sahayak, Speaker, U.P. Leg. Assembly Sri Mata Prasad Pandey, the great historian Dr. Ram Prasad Tripathi, the great Scientist Dr. Nityanand, the great literary figures - Smt. Mahadevi Verma, Dr. Ram Kumar Verma, Sri Ram Dhari Singh 'Dinkar', Dr.Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, Sri Bhagwati Charan Verma, Sri Amrit Lal Nagar, Sri Shri Lal Shukla, Sri Raghupati Sahai Firaq, the noted Sarod Vadak Sri Vishwa jeet Roy Chaudhary, Prof. of Psychology, Tilburg University, Netherland, Simon Browser, list can be extended still further, honoured this college with their visits and felt delighted to be here.

Great sportsmen, Sri K.D.Singh 'Babu', Sri Jhamman Lal Sharma, Sri Ashok Kumar Olympian Hockey Player, Km Meena Shah have honoured the hockey field and the Badminton courts of this college Provincial level Badminton, Table Tennis, Volley Ball, Cricket and Sri B.P.Singh All India Hockey Tournament have been played on the play fields of the college. Activities more activities and still more in all fields that is an educational institution has. Our boys and girls play all the games and participate in all the competitions and co-curricular and cultural activities the year round and give excellent performances and procure prizes.

This college can feel proud of its old students who have distinguished themselves not only nationally but internationally. To name only some - Dr. Girish Saran Agrawal, Dean School of Physics, Hyderabad (A.P.), Dr. Jang Bahadur Shukla, Professor of Mathematics, I.I.T., Kanpur (Sir Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award winner), Dr. Patan Deen Singh, Department of Physics in a University in Brazil, Dr. Mohd Said Khan, Department of Maths, Jeddah University (Saudi Arabia), Dr. Hukum Singh, Professor and Head, deptt. of Maths, NCERT, New Delhi are just some names who have earned international recognition in their respective branches of study and have won awards for their scholarship.

In administrative services also, students of this college have gone out to distinguish themselves and to top them all is Sri S.P.Arya (I.A.S.) and Sri K. Upadhyay (I.A.S.). The Engineering services, the army service, the medical service has numerous old students of this college distinguishing themselves in their respective fields. Sri Iqbal Hasan, Sri Vinay Kumar Pandey, Sri Ashfaq Ahmad, Dr. S.P.Yadav, Sri Anwar Mahmood and Mohd Masood khan have represented their respective constituencies as M.L.A.s. The recounting of the achievements and distinctions won by the old students of this college speaks volumes about the college which gave them the scope, the atmosphere, the congenial care which helped them to grow in that manner. The college can rightly take the credit for grooming them for achieving these distinctions. The college rightly feels proud of them and takes pride in itself on their account.

So this has been the M.L.K. College - the journey has been long 1955 to 2005 which is just from infancy to maturity but in the life of a college aging never comes. Old age is unknown and the moment an Institution feels itself 'old', it is gone and lost. It is the home of the youth and the nursery of youthfulness, courage, confidence, self-reliance,determination and descipline. Let the young who come to M.L.K. College, feel this around in its atmosphere, inhale it and feel the vigour of virtue of goodness, gentlemanliness and the aspiration of ever achieving gusto.

May I take this occasion of recording my heartiest blessings to the young boys and girls of the M.L.K. College live with glory and let it feel proud of you.