Shailabala women’s College, Cuttack, is one of the oldest and most renowned colleges for women’s education in the country, where generations of Odia girls have received education and enlightenment with which they have shaped the form and destiny of the state and the nation. The college owes its existence to two of the foremost pioneering spirits of Odisha, Utkal Gourav Madhusudan Das and his adopted daughter, Miss Shailabala Das. Situated near the holy shrine of Goddess Katak Chandi, the majestic college building stands imposingly on mission Road, the silver city of Odisha.
Shailabala in an age where women were marginalized, was in the forefront of a movement for women’s social, cultural and educational uplift and empowerment. She was a member of the Board of Education, constituted by the Government of Bihar and Odisha in 1912, to look into the problems of education in odisha. Miss Shailabala Das and Mrs. Banks represented Odisha at the Board meeting in Ranchi, where the opening of an intermediate college for women was recommended. Accordingly, intermediate classes started functioning in the premises of Ravenshaw Girls’ School in the year 1913. In 1917, both the school and college shifted to a new locality in Choudhury Bazar.