One of Central India’s Most Recognised Nursing Institutions — the Journey Deserves to Be Told
People’s University | Bhopal | July 15, 2026
Twenty years is not a small thing
January 2006. A nursing college opens in Bhopal under Sarvajanik Jankalyan Parmarthik Nyas with one programme, a clear purpose and no guarantee of what it would become. Twenty years later, on July 15, 2026, People’s College of Nursing and Research Centre celebrates Vicennalia — its 20th anniversary — not with a routine function but with the full weight of what those two decades actually built.
118 research papers. 4 patents. 6 academic programmes. Graduates working in AIIMS, Apollo, Fortis, Medanta and government hospitals across the country. Alumni in the USA, UK, Australia, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. 100 plus health awareness programmes run in the community. 5 villages adopted. A UK design registration for an AI-based cancer detection device developed right here in Bhopal.
None of that was on the brochure in 2006. All of it is the reality in 2026.
How it started and what the first years looked like
The college began operations on July 22, 2006 with B.Sc. Nursing — 100 seats, annual system, a fresh faculty team and a hospital attached for clinical training. The first three batches of B.Sc. Nursing achieved 100% pass results. That is not a number that happens by accident. It comes from structure, from faculty who stayed, from students who were supported properly through a degree that demands real clinical hours alongside classroom learning.
M.Sc. Nursing followed in 2009. Post Basic B.Sc. Nursing in 2012. GNM in 2013. Post Diploma programmes in Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Nursing, OT Nursing and Neonatal Nursing the same year. Ph.D. in Nursing in 2015 — making research a formal part of the institution’s identity, not just an aspiration. The semester system came in for B.Sc. Nursing in 2021, and that first semester-system batch also closed with 100% results.
By 2026, six programmes run under one roof. Undergraduate, postgraduate, doctoral and diploma pathways — a full spectrum that very few nursing institutions in Madhya Pradesh can match.
The numbers that define two decades
Some institutions mark anniversaries with ceremonies. The real celebration at PCN&RC is in what the records show.
M.Sc. Nursing achieved 100% results in 9 out of 12 batches between 2008 and 2020. Post Basic B.Sc. Nursing ran 100% results in three consecutive batches from 2013 to 2016. The 2025-26 first semester batch closed at 98%.
University toppers came from here too. Soumya Pragati with 83.04% under the annual system. Payal Haldiya with 8.53 SGPA as overall topper in the semester system. Sharat V. Kondaguli with 86.46% and University First Rank in M.Sc. Nursing in 2023.
Four convocation ceremonies have been held. The first in 2013 marked the graduation of the very first B.Sc. and M.Sc. batches. The fourth in 2024 was presided over by Shri Mangubhai C Patel, Governor of Madhya Pradesh. The guest list across those four ceremonies includes a sitting Governor of Uttar Pradesh, a Member of Parliament, and senior figures from Indian nursing academia — the kind of gathering a college earns over time, not overnight.
The institution carries ISO 9001:2015 certification for Quality Management in competency-based nursing education, valid through 2029. It was recognised as Best Academic Institution at the Bhopal Education Leadership Awards 2023 under the World Education Congress. The Knowledge Review Magazine placed it among the Top 10 Nursing and Pharmacy Institutes in India in 2019.
Five active MoUs are in place — with Global Talent Track, Asian Heart Institute, AIIMS Bhopal, FPAI and FRAC. Academic sponsorships have come from ICMR, TNAI and major medical publishers.
Research that goes well beyond the classroom
41 researchers worked under Mission TRP-2015. 118 research papers published across two decades. 4 patents and design registrations. 30 faculty studies completed in the last six months alone.
The college holds the distinction of being the first in Madhya Pradesh to register a nursing research study with the Clinical Trials Registry of India. A UK Design Registration was secured for an AI-based gynaecological cancer detection device developed by faculty here. Faculty have presented at the Commonwealth Nurses and Midwives Conference, at Shodh Shikhar 2023 and at the Madhya Pradesh Young Scientist Congress.
That is not the research output of an institution going through the motions. That is a department that decided early on that nursing education and nursing research belong together.
Into the community — not just inside the campus
5 villages adopted under Unnat Bharat Abhiyan — Arvaliya, Parwaliya, Harra Kheda, Bhainskheda and Honoti Sadak. Over 100 health awareness programmes. More than 75 health camps and 75 school health programmes across Bhopal and surrounding areas. 15 plus blood donation camps. Participation in the Pulse Polio Campaign on 10 to 12 occasions.
NCC cadets from the college have been honoured at the Republic Day Camp in Delhi. Sgt. Namrata Kumari won first prize at the National Integration Awareness Programme, RDC 2024. Rivika Thapa received the Best Cadet Award twice and attended three National Camps.
A nursing college that only teaches nursing inside its walls is doing half the job. PCN&RC has been doing the other half for all twenty years.
Where the graduates went
This is the part that matters most when you assess what an institution actually built.
Alumni from PCN&RC are working as Nursing Officers at AIIMS, BMHRC, Government Medical Colleges and National Health Mission hospitals. Community Health Officers placed across multiple districts and states. Faculty and tutors in nursing colleges and universities. Students who went on to M.Sc. Nursing, MBBS and postgraduate programmes. And graduates working across the USA, UK, Australia, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia — in hospitals that recruit Indian nurses because they trust Indian nursing education.
Mr. Ciju Varghese was First Runner-Up in the Personality Contest at the 31st SNAI Biennial Conference in 2025. Mr. Migron Rubin won Mr. SNA at the State Biennial Conference in Indore in 2013. These are students who represented an institution and carried its name well.
What the third decade looks like
The plans for the next chapter are already in place. B.Sc. Nursing intake expanding from 100 to 200 seats. A 5,000 square foot high-fidelity clinical simulation centre. New international MoUs for research, faculty exchange and student mobility. An expanded digital library. More funded research projects and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Twenty years built something real. The next twenty have a strong foundation to build on.
Vicennalia — July 15, 2026
Today is not just an anniversary event. It is a moment for everyone who walked through these gates — as a student, as a faculty member, as a patient in a health camp, as a community in one of those five villages — to see what the decision to start a nursing college in Bhopal in 2006 actually became.
Twenty years of caring. Twenty years of learning. Twenty years of leading.
People’s College of Nursing and Research Centre, People’s University Bhopal — Vicennalia 2026.
