Puducherry is already known as “Hardware capital of India”. Almost all the majors in the Hardware industry such as Lenovo, Acer, WIPRO, HCL, HP have set up their unit in Puducherry. The Directorate of Higher & Technical Education of Puducherry, was bifurcated from the erstwhile Directorate of Education to set up a separate establishment for dealing with the matters pertaining to the Higher Education. The Government of Puducherry, to impart quality higher education has established various colleges in the Government sector and also under various Societies. Two Societies namely Union Territory of Pondicherry Colleges of Education Society (UTPCES) and the Union Territory of Pondicherry Arts Science and Technology Colleges Society (UTPASTCS) were formed in the year 2000 and 2001 respectively. The former society was formed to impart Teaching Education Technology to the youth of this Union Territory and the latter for teaching arts and science courses. In view of the similar administrative and financial functioning of these Societies the Government have since amalgamated these Societies into one and named it as “PONDICHERRY SOCIETY FOR HIGHER EDUCATION (PONSHE)” which was registered on 15.03.2007 with registration No. 397 of 2007 under Societies Act and functioning under the Chairmanship of the Hon’ble Minister for Higher Education.
Under this Society, presently one College of Education in Karaikal Region and four Arts & Science Colleges in Puducherry Region are functioning. Indira Gandhi College of Arts and Science started functioning from the academic year 2001-02 under the aegis of this Society, is running in the premises of the Government Girls’ Higher Secondary School, Kadirkamam, Puducherry-9.
Indira Gandhi College of Arts and Science was started as a co-educational institution in the year 2001 with four under graduate courses with intake of 33 students (per course) in Biotechnology, Computer Applications, Foreign Trade and Statistics with the prime objective of providing quality education in the fields of Information Technology, Biotechnology and areas which are not frequented by the existing Government and Private Colleges of the Union Territory. An additional course in Applied Microbiology was started in the year 2004. The courses were given affiliation by the Pondicherry University.
This college is covered under section 2(f) of UGC Act. This college has been allotted land in Oulgaret Revenue village for the construction of new buildings. Currently, it is housed in the Government school campus, which is situated in the central area of the capital town of Puducherry. It has a main building that accommodates the administrative office, staff room, academic departments and the laboratories. The laboratories are well equipped and carefully maintained. The class rooms, multipurpose hall, library, NSS, NCC and sports room are in the other building. Every floor is equipped with rest rooms for male and female students individually. There is adequate facility for the students to perform all prescribed experiments and do project work. The Government of Puducherry appoints watchmen, and sweepers for the maintenance of college campus and the existing services. The PWD is responsible for maintaining the physical infrastructure facilities and water and electricity services. The Government appoints Lab assistants for the Science Labs. They are responsible for the maintenance of equipment in the lab.