Srinagar: After withholding admissions to the lone Master’s programme in Craft Management and Entrepreneurship (MCME) for the last two years, the Craft Development Institute (CDI) in Srinagar is likely to resume admissions this session but with a different name of the course.
Established in 2004 at old city’s Nowshehra, the CDI did not admit students during 2018 and 2019 academic sessions to the MCME programme upon directions from the University of Kashmir. The reason for this was that the CDI had failed to appoint permanent faculty as per the University Grants Commission (UGC) norms.
However, in the upcoming academic session, the Master’s programme is likely going to resume but it will have the new title of ‘MBA in Craft Management and Entrepreneurship’, official sources told Kashmir Reader.
The decision, they said, was taken at a meeting chaired by the Commissioner Secretary, Higher Education, on December 26 in Jammu.
The Director Handicrafts, Director CDI, and Head of KU’s Management Studies department were also part of the December 26 meeting, as per the sources.
Confirming the development, Head of Department, Management Studies, at KU, Prof Mushtaq Ahmad Darzi, who attended the meeting, said he hoped the new programme will open job opportunities for new MBA students.
Students who have passed out of the MCME programme, Prof Darzi said, can also avail the new nomenclature of MBA.
Prof Darzi said that admissions for the programme will be notified once the minutes of the December 26 meeting have been made public.
Till the CDI appoints permanent faculty for the MBA programme, Prof Darzi said, the institute can avail services of the faculty at KU’s Management Studies department. The KU faculty can teach the opening semesters of the programme at CDI given that there are common courses for different branches of MBA in the first year, he said.
“But the CDI will have to arrange specialist teachers for the last two semesters. I don’t think that will be difficult for them,” he added.
Besides the MBA programme, the CDI, as per Prof Darzi, may also offer UG and certificate courses in craft management from the upcoming academic session

Irshad Khan