Department of Zoology

Brief Profile of the Department

During the year 1980 under the then Calcutta University Post Graduate Centre the Department of Life Science was established and started its academic activities. The Department of Life Science since that period initiated MSc degree and PhD degree programme as well. In different disciplines of Life Sciences research studies leading to PhD degree was carried out.

At some period in 1987 the then Calcutta University Post Graduate Centre was converted into Tripura University. On 12th June 2007 the Department of Zoology was established through trifurcation of pre-existing Department of Life Science, where three basic life science subjects were existed in that department. Those subjects were Zoology, Botany, and Physiology as well.

The Department of Zoology for the first time in Tripura developed artificial fertilization technology through Research studies on captive breeding technology on highly proteinaceous cat fish species Ompok bimaculatus. Similar technology was also developed on Chitala chitala as well. Further, the department also identified Triploid form of Clarias batrachus for the first time in North-East in general and Tripura in particular. A series of researches on freshwater aquaculture technologies are going on in different varieties of Pabda species such as Ompok pabda and Ompok pabo as well.. Research studies are also in progress to identify wild resources of different freshwater and endangered, rare, threatened and near threatened fish species as well in the lotic ecosystem of Tripura.

At the present period the Department of Zoology is actively engaged in teaching Zoology. Simultaneously, Pre-doctoral research on various fields of Zoology are also going on. The fields of research have been development on Captive breeding technology in certain endangered, near-threatened and rare fish species, aquaculture biotechnology on Pabda fish etc., endocrinology, earthworm biology and ecology etc. The Department presently offers specialization in the field of Fish technology, endocrinology etc. This Department has facilities to work with sophisticated trinocular microscopes, electrophoretic system, gas chromatography, PCR system, lyophilizer and fraction collector as well.

Usually the Intake capacity for the MSc students in the Department is 30 and for Ph.D. scholars the number of intake capacity varies from year to year. RET Examination is conducted by the University for admission of Pre-Doc scholars in the department.

At present, the Department is working on enhancing its area of the research activities in different fields of Zoology. To enhance researches on different advance areas of biology financial supports from various funding agencies were available such as DBT, DST, CSIR etc.

Year of Establishment

2007

Head of the Department

Dr. Shiv Shankar Singh