The Alumni/Alumnae of Bengal Engineering College (BECollege)/Bengal Engineering College (DU)/ Bengal Engineering & Science University (BESU), Shibpur (presently IIEST-Shibpur from March 2014) formed an association in 2005 to represent All Alums of the institution. The main purpose for the formation of this association is to cultivate, nurture and maintain among its fellow members' camaraderie, sentiment of respect for one another, affection and attachment to the institute as well as to support and promote its interests in every possible way.
JOURNEY
To reach any milestone, there is always a background journey. As the proverb says, every beginning has a separate beginning. To quote one of our famous Alumnus (albeit in Bengali Literature, rather than his long-lasting engineering career) Late Sri Narayan Sanyal (1948 CE) in Bengali “ যেমন প্রদীপ জ্বালানো’র আগে সলতে পাকানো “.
This organization, GAABESU, is relatively new for an Institution which has completed 150 years of existence and a pioneer in Indian engineering education, the second oldest engineering institute in India. However, at least for the last fifty (50) years or more, an organization named B E College Alumni Association (BECAA) existed, though its activities were mostly limited to organizing the annual Reunion. Similarly, many such organizations still exist in various states & large cities of India (like in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata-Salt Lake, etc.) and outside India (like in USA East Coast, Los Angeles, Canada, Middle-East, etc.). GAABESU endeavors and is partially successful in bringing all these associations of BEC Alumni, linked to one common platform, so as to help the Institute and its student community.
Here also, the formation of GAABESU was preceded by a journey, which, in one path, started around 1998-99, in West Coast of United States. Few alumni in San-Francisco, USA area started forming a common fund towards helping alumni in needs and also to provide support to students of the then Bengal Engineering College.
A separate planning and movement was also underway in India towards formation of a Global Alumni body in 2004-05. It was felt that for various activities in BEC/BESU, different alumni organizations from around the world were approaching the institute separately and a common organization, representing most of the alive alumni from all over the world, would be real beneficial for the Institute and it’s students as well as the alumni community.
B E College/BESU was planning to organize it’s 150th year in 2006 and the Institute started planning for organizing the event in a large scale. Support of alumni was sought and an alumni body was formed. As a separate event, 1953 entrant batch of B E College was planning to organize their 50th year in a grand scale. Here also, an alumni body started preparations. Incidentally, this same 1953 entrant batch was instrumental as student organizers in the 100th year celebrations of B E College in 1956. Under both these organizations, a need was felt to form a global alumni body.
Both these two parallel movements in USA and in India got combined in 2005 to officially form a Global Alumni Association of BESU (the name of the Institute at that point of time). The association got registered with the Registrar of Societies, under the Government of West Bengal, India in 2008.
GAABESU presently represents a large community of over 25,000 alumni spread around the globe.
