Orient Craft setting up fashion institute in Hyd

In a public-private partnership with the Andhra Pradesh government, Gurgaon-based textile and clothing export house, Orient Craft Limited, is setting up the Orient Craft Fashion Institute of Technology (OCFIT) in Hyderabad.

Under the arrangement, the state government has allotted 23.5-acre of land to Orient Craft at the Apparel Park on the city outskirts. The textile major has committed to invest Rs 125 crore in the institute over the next three years.

OCFIT would offer fashion and textile technology linked to the requirements of the industry and the consumer markets.

The integral parts of the institute would be an operating commercial factory to provide hands-on exposure to the students in real-time environments, an on-campus international buying house complex to help them understand the nuances of business and a school of technology for the benefit of shop-floor mechanics and operatives, Sudhir Dhingra, chairman and managing director of Orient Craft, told mediapersons here on Sunday.

According to him, OCFIT would offer short-term and one-year certified courses for shop-floor mechanics, supervisors and operatives at a temporary facility in Nampally on a pilot basis in a couple of weeks, before launching four-year integrated programmes on fashion technology, management and textile design at the OCFIT campus, which is scheduled to start academic sessions from July 2009. The institute expects to have an intake of 1,000 students in the first academic year.

"We are negotiating with a couple of institutions in the US and UK for affiliated and accredited academic programmes. Also on the cards are plans to go in for a deemed varsity status," LV Saptharishi, chairman of OCFIT, said.

The foundation stone for the institute will be laid by chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy on April 7, 2008.