DKTE Society's Textile & Engineering Institute History

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The Company Description of Its Time

The DKTE Society filing is the education entry in this letter: not a company at all, but a textile institute in Ichalkaranji, Maharashtra, filed among company names because that is where the Indian textile trade looks for it. Its original opens with the problem it was founded to solve: in spite of the phenomenal growth of the textile industry taking place at Ichalkaranji during the previous 25 years, there was no educational institute up to 1980 which could cater to the industry's need for technically trained manpower, and the local industry was handicapped by the dearth of technically qualified personnel. Ichalkaranji's mills could weave; what they could not do was staff themselves locally with trained textile technologists.

1982: The First No-Grant Institute in the State

As its first step, the Dattajirao Kadam Education Society established the Textile and Engineering Institute in 1982. The institute was permitted by the State Government to start a diploma course in textiles from the academic year 1982-83 without any grant-in-aid from the Government. The original makes a claim for that decision that deserves quoting in substance: this was the first educational institute in the state to be started on a no-grant basis, and, encouraged by its successful establishment, the Maharashtra State Government took a policy decision in 1983 to permit various social and industrial organisations of the state to start professional educational institutes - a decision which, in the profile's words, brought a revolution in the thinking and pattern of education in the state. A textile town's self-funded diploma course is thus filed as the precedent for a statewide policy, and the claim is kept as the institute's own, attributed as recorded.

The institute's present standing, as historical descriptions describe it, rests on its industry link: the Textile & Engineering Institute enjoys a unique and prominent place amongst institutions engaged in education, training, research and consultancy in various disciplines of engineering in India, catering to the needs of industry for the past twenty five years at the time of filing. The link with industry has been cultivated over those years, and the institute is known not only in India but internationally, with projects from Oman and Nigeria. Its stated emphasis is value based technical education for aspirants who wish to enter the corporate world - a mission phrasing preserved here as recorded.

Courses, Scale and the Wider Society

The course structure as recorded: the institute conducts ten degree courses in Textiles, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science & Engineering, Information Technology, Electronic Engineering and Electronics & Telecommunications Engineering; three diploma courses in Textiles; and seven postgraduate courses in textiles as well as Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Engineering. The total student strength is around 3,000, with 176 teaching faculty members and 285 non-teaching staff - the staffing figures are part of the filing's evidence for its claim that very high standards of education are maintained, supported by excellent infrastructural facilities and a highly qualified staff, alongside an interaction with industry for which the institute is particularly known.

The society around the institute has grown well beyond textiles, and historical descriptions list the extension because it shows the 1981 ambition fulfilled: primary schools, high schools, a junior college, a Physical Education College, an institute of Vocational Education, a management college, a commerce college and a CBSE curriculum school. The officers as recorded are Mr. K.B. Awade as Chairman, Mr. R.N. Kulkarni as Vice-Chairman, Mr. R.V. Ketkar as Treasurer and Dr. Mrs. S.U. Awade as Hon. Secretary - names and roles preserved as the directory recorded them, and to be confirmed with the institute for any current correspondence. The official institute site in the References carries current admissions and course information; the preserved Apparel Search route leads to the fashion schools directory, where DKTE sits among the textile education options this site maps for the trade.

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