institutionl Distinctiveness

Entrepreneurship education is crucial in India, equipping students with skills that benefit various aspects of their lives and fostering a proactive, innovative mindset. This preparation enables them to contribute effectively to the economy and society. Universities and Colleges are increasingly focusing on promoting self-employment and the creation of small and medium enterprises.

Tuljaram Chaturchand College has made significant strides by establishing the Entrepreneurship Development Cell (EDC) in 2018-19 and the Innovation and Incubation Cell in 2019-20, both supported by the Ministry of Human Resource Development and Savitribai Phule Pune University. With the college’s transition to an autonomous institution in the 2019- 2020 academic year, the curriculum was updated to a credit-based system, enhancing learning through internships, dissertations, and skill-based courses, adapting to new educational requirements.

For our college, Institutional distinctiveness refers to the unique characteristics, strengths, and qualities that set the college apart from others. These aspects typically encompass several key areas:

1. Academic Excellence: 

The institution offers a wide variety of undergraduate and post

graduate academic programs in the faculty of arts, science and commerce. Mainly, it includes total 64 Programs in the disciplines of Arts, Science and Commerce. Total Students strength for the last 5 years is 31,581.

2. Research Activities: 

The college is also involved in research and development activities prominently to promote research culture among the students and teachers. College promoted research activities among teachers by providing seed money for research projects. Total Rs. 20,55,000 sanctioned as the seed money for teaches. To foster the research and innovation culture, college established 11 research centers. In all 60 students are registered for the PhD. in the various research centers.

 To inculcate the research activities patent cell has been established to execute the activities and guidance in the patent process for both teachers and students. The total 24 patents are registered by the teachers.

To boost the entrepreneurship development culture among students the following major initiatives have been taken by the institute:

3.   Entrepreneurship Development Cell:

 Activities conducted under ED cell prominently focused on empowering entrepreneurship development skills and job skills among students. The cell was established in 2018-19 under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India. Since its inception, the cell has facilitated numerous skill development activities for students across various disciplines. Over 4058 students acquired essential skills for employment or to launch their own startups.

Each department within the institution organized activities aligned with their curriculum and aimed at fostering entrepreneurship. These activities provided students with practical skills beyond their academic knowledge. The college provide funds to these initiatives and allocated approximately Rs. 39,39,236/- between the years 2019 to 2023 for various skill development programs under the ED cell.

4.   Innovation and Incubation cell:

To foster student entrepreneurship, the college set up an Innovation and Incubation Cell.

Cell executes various activities as follows:

• Business Fair: The Business Fair, a key annual event of the cell, allows the students to showcase their products. In the past two years, 65 student groups have exhibited their creations. The fair also featured management games and food stalls. Industry experts, bankers, and other students attended, offered valuable networking and guidance to student startups through connected industry mentors.
• Entrepreneurship Competitions: College organized different entrepreneurship and startup competitions to showcase student their talent and encourage innovation. It Included

1. Startup New Venture
2. Business Logo Design

 4.3 Idea Bank: An idea bank is a repository designed to collect, store, and manage creative ideas or concepts related to business startups of students. There are total 12 ideas in idea bank.

4.4 Industry Connection: The college has a very good connection with local industries and industry experts. It generated networks to provide real-world insights, internship opportunities, and potential funding sources for student ventures. The industry connection is established with the help of MoU s. College signed the total 85 MoUs with different departments. Under these MoU s various activities were conducted to enhance the entrepreneurship skills of the students.

4.5 Industrial Mentor – Mentee Activities: As a part of Innovation and Incubation cell, total 15 industry experts were connected to the cell as a mentor. These members gave guidelines to students related to their business development process. Some members are actively engaged in business development activities of students. Mentors conducted the sessions to other colleges regarding development of incubation cell

4.6 Institution’s Innovation Council [IIC]: Institution’s Innovation Council (IIC) program is an initiative of Ministry of Education (MoE) through MoE’s Innovation Cell (MIC) in collaboration with AICTE for Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) to foster the culture of innovation and start-up ecosystem in education institutions.

IICs’ role is to engage large number of faculty, students and staff in various innovation and entrepreneurship related activities such as ideation, problem solving, design thinking, IPR, preparation of detailed project reports etc. For this purpose, innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem gets established in HEIs.

5. Business Katta Activity:

 Under Innovation and Incubation Cell, Business Katta activity was introduced, through which the activity cell provided the marketing platform to the students. Students arranged the stalls of products for selling goods. Since the establishment of the cell the total 32 stalls were displayed under Business Katta.

6. Contribution to Regional Development: 

Colleges with active incubation cells contributed to the economic development of their region by fostering a startup ecosystem. Successful startups may create job opportunities, attract investment, and contribute to local innovation clusters, thereby positioning the college as a key player in the regional entrepreneurship ecosystem. Some prominent alumni entrepreneurs of the college have well established their business firms in the local area ranging sectors like Glossary Malls, two and four-wheeler show-rooms, textile shops, hotels, etc. These activities contributed in the regional development.

To conclude, the Innovation and Incubation Cell boosted the college’s distinctiveness by supporting student entrepreneurship, offering resources, promoting innovation and contributing to regional development.