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Cover Story

Educational Initiatives College of Engineering, Pune

- An Alliance with Premier Ltd. and Shri Lalchand Hirachand Premier Trust My father strongly believed in supporting technical education in India and wanted students to have high-quality facilities to improve their knowledge.

- Mr Maitreya Doshi,

Chairman, Premier Ltd & Managing Trustee

The Production Engineering Workshop was inaugurated on January 4, 2011 by Mrs. Supriya Sule, Lok Sabha MP, Baramati After an alliance which commenced several years ago, the Trust donated Rs 2 crore to the College of Engineering, Pune (COEP) to modernise and renovate their production engineering laboratory.

The laboratory is named "Vinod Doshi Memorial Production Engineering Workshop", in memory of the late industrialist and the former chairman of Premier Automobiles Ltd., Mr. Vinod Doshi.

Mr Maitreya Doshi, chairman of Premier Ltd and managing trustee said, “My father strongly believed in supporting technical education in India and wanted students to have high-quality facilities to improve their knowledge.”

The 138-year-old lab has been fully upgraded and equipped with state-of-the-art CNC machines, some of which have been provided by Premier’s machine tool division.

Dignitaries at the Vinod Doshi Memorial Production Engineering Workshop

The COEP faculty and students are very excited about this new lab.

According to Kanad Saha, third year mechanical engineering student,

“Earlier, we worked with German-made traditional lathes. But now we are able to work on CNC machines. We can now implement all the theories that we have learnt about CNC machines. Even the workshop environment has drastically improved after the renovation. Our workshop is now more in line with industry conventions.”

Earlier, we worked with German-made traditional lathes. But now we are able to work on CNC machines. We can now implement all the theories that we have learnt about CNC machines. Even the workshop environment has drastically improved after the renovation. Our workshop is now more in line with industry conventions now.

- Kanad Saha, Third year mechanical engineering student

Cover Story

Dignitaries at the press conference

The laboratory was inaugurated on January 4, 2011. To grace this auspicious occasion was imminent Lok Sabha MP from Baramati, Mrs. Supriya Sule.

Additionally, the Doshis have also instituted five annual scholarships called the Vinod Doshi COEP Merit Scholarships, for students with strong academic credentials, but severe financial need.

Each scholarship, of Rs 2.5 lakh, covers the student’s entire tuition fee, lodging, boarding and course material required during the four-year degree program.

The only condition is that they maintain their academic performance, failing which, the scholarship will be withdrawn.

The students are selected by the COEP faculty and the Trust is not involved in the process.

The recipients are offered a paid summer internship at Premier’s factory in Chinchwad for the four years at his/her option. “We get to manually work on various machines, which helps breathe life into the theories we learn in the classroom. The line managers are not only well-versed in the field, but also patiently supportive through our learning process,” says Anirudha Kulkarni, third year B.Tech

A word of appreciation by COEP to the Trust for the philanthropic deed

Production Engineering student, who also trained in the Machine Tool Division.

On the successful completion of his/ her degree, the student is also guaranteed a job at Premier Ltd. The choice of accepting this offer, however, is left to the student with no obligation imposed by Premier or the trust.

What’s more is that Premier also preempted the need to properly train the COEP faculty about the operation and functioning of these machines. To serve

the purpose, a training program was conducted at the factory for the production department staff, to impart detailed operational information of the new CNC technology.

During the training in June 2010, they went through CNC programming, part programming, machining operations, maintenance of machines, safety measures and new concepts in engineering.

COEP Engineering Graduates express their gratitude to Premier Ltd.

Abhinav Kshirsagar, Trainee Engineer -Automotive, R&D

Premier is the best company for engineers like us to start with, as it provides us opportunities to explore and implement new ideas at work.

The I Suggest scheme of Premier is very useful for young engineers like us.

Premier is an ocean of knowledge for me. The best thing I like about it is the comfortable working environment that I have got being a girl. I am lucky to be associated with Premier.

Sushma Kedare Trainee Engineer - Machine Tool Division, Materials

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