Basanti Devi College, Kolkata was established in 1959. Its affiliated to the University of Calcutta.

Basanti Devi College, named after Basanti Devi, was the first Government sponsored college for women in Kolkata to be founded by the Government of West Bengal in 1959. An eminent freedom fighter, Basanti Devi, wife of Sri Chittaranjan Das, was the first Indian lady to be imprisoned under British Rule for her involvement in the Indian freedom struggle.

Located at the junction of the urban and rural conglomerate, this premier college caters to the needs of girl students from both these areas. A large group of them are also from backward classes, minority communities and from below poverty line. The college offers scope for higher education for women with special needs.

Along with the Calcutta University stipulated academic curriculum, the college also offers scope for the empowerment of girl students by helping them to develop their self-help skills, self-reliance and independence.

It is a premier undergraduate institution for girls as one of the first sponsored colleges by the Government of West Bengal under scheme 2F of the UGC. IGNOU,.

Basanti Devi College Convergence Program is initiated in 2008 with an intention to merge the traditional class room based studies with distant learning mode under one roof. The main goal of the college is to equip the enrolled students with, academic degrees, and to help them to develop a sense of self respect and self reliance, empowerment and emancipation, irrespective of the social strata of their origin.

Our college library contains a rich collection of 28000 books. (Text Books & Reference, 25 Peer reviewed Journals, 4 Daily News papers, 3 Employment oriented Newspapers, more than 1 Lakh e-books, and approximately 4500 peer-reviewed journals. The College Library is one among the leading libraries of West Bengal, highly praised by NAAC for being developed according to NAAC recommendations. It is technologically equipped to offer students the scope to update themselves. Library Membership is compulsory and open access facilities are available. This is the first college in West Bengal and under the University of Calcutta to receive INFLIBNET-NLIST Connectivity for Electronic Library. Its 5 wings include the air-conditioned Central Library and the Reading Room (for students), both under CCTV Surveillance, and the air-conditioned Research Centre for faculty members.