Pachhunga University College

Pachhunga University College (PUC) is a public institute in Aizawl, Mizoram, and the only constituent college of Mizoram University, a central university established by an Act of Parliament of India. Founded in 1958 as Aijal College, it is the oldest and largest college in Mizoram, by enrolment and campus size.^[1] It started with intermediate of arts (equivalent of higher secondary education) courses, and later expanded to bachelor's degrees in arts, commerce and science. With the opening of master's degree courses in Mizo, philosophy and life sciences, it became the first postgraduate college in Mizoram.^[2]

The college is named in honour of Pachhunga, a leading businessman and politician, who funded its initial management in 1962. It became a university college when the North Eastern Hill University incorporated it as its only constituent college in 1979. The permanent campus, occupied since 1965, is situated in College Veng, a locality at the eastern end of Aizawl. The 138-acre campus is the only verdant forest reserve in Aizawl, and is referred to as the "lung of the city." For its conservation of forests, it received the Indira Priyadarshini Vrikshamitra Awards in 1995, a national award for pioneering and innovative works in afforestation and wasteland management, from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India.

It received the Best College award from the Zoram Research Foundation, consecutively in 2004 and 2006. Between 2009 and 2013, the Department of Science and Technology of India awarded the college with a special scheme of Fund for Improvement of Science and Technology Infrastructure (FIST). In 2011, the Department of Biotechnology of India set up Institutional Biotech Hub, which was upgraded to Advanced Institutional Biotech Hub in 2017. The same year, DBT awarded its Star College Scheme. In 2017, the University Grants Commission made it College with Potential for Excellence.^[3] In 2021, the DBT awarded the college its first DBT-Boost to University Interdisciplinary Life Science Departments for Education and Research programme (DBT-BUILDER).

In 2022, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council classified it as "A⁺" grade with a CGPA of 3.37, the highest score in northeast India. The National Institutional Ranking Framework placed it at 45th among colleges in India, the only college within the top 100 list, and thus, the highest rank from northeast India. The college was ranked 34th in NIRF-2023 College rankings.