BLOG 7 - "Marine Musings 3" - About Directorate of Marine Engineering Training - DMET

The Institution that I studied and trained has - as of 2022 - evolved into a different, multi dimensional University, spanning many cities since my entry in 1966.

At first, it was a Training Directorate for Marine Engineers, under the aegis of the Ministry of Transport. At the end of 4 years, we were given a Certificate, signed by a person on behalf of the President of India, that certified we had completed our training for Marine Engineering. It was neither a Diploma, nor a Degree, but carried tremendous weight in the the entire shipping world, except the USA.

From 1983, cadets were awarded a Bachelor's Degree in Marine Engineering.

I am not certain exactly when Marine Engineering and Research Institute (MERI) was formed, but in 2002 it was integrated with other government owned Marine Institutes such as L.B.S. CAMSAR, Training Ship Chanakya, MERI Kolkata and MERI Mumbai.

Once again changes took place in 2008, when it became part of the Indian Maritime University, encompassing a plethora of colleges, institutes and other organisations that really had nothing to do with Marine Engineering or Nautical Sciences, thereby - in my opinion - diluting the value of DMET and TS Chanakya. (Geriatrics like me remember it as TS Dufferin).

More on this topic in my next blog.

With this, "Marine Musings 3" begins.

BLOG 7

Marine Musings 3 – Four years at P-19, Taratolla Road, Calcutta (1966 to 1970)

Motto: Samudra Gyanam Gyana Samudram

(This motto evolved much later, possibly after DMET became Indian Maritime University. The logo remains the same)

Kolkata Campus Main Building

Mumbai Campus

Chapter 1

A vast campus, with a Junior Hostel, Senior Hostel, College with classrooms and other appendages, one building with laboratories and workshops and an array of staff quarters surrounded by playing fields greeted me on arrival.

A brief background history is necessary here to introduce the landlubber to how DMET (Directorate of Marine Engineering Training) became the reputed institution that transcended national borders and intertwined itself with international shipping, producing some of the finest Marine Engineers to serve the shipping world.

With a developing need for trained Indian seafaring officers, the Training Ship Dufferin started training cadets in 1927, with an Engineering division introduced in 1935. With rapidly improving technological innovations and a need to fast track Indian Maritime activities, the Navigational and Engineering training units were split in 1949, these training activities being held on board the TS Dufferin till then.

DMET, under the Ministry of Transport and Shipping, was established in Calcutta in 1949 and moved to its new building at P-19, Taratolla Road in 1953, to provide Pre-Sea Training for Engineers, who can then serve the Merchant Marine and / or the Indian Navy. The then Chief Minister of West Bengal, Dr. BC Roy, lobbied hard for DMET to be established in Calcutta, with promises of land and aid, the quid pro quo being the allotment of a certain percentage of the seats to Bengalis.

It was designed as a four years’ training course, with emphasis on workshop and on-board training (on vessels in port) for the first three years (with academic classes after workshop, in the night) and a 4th year of academic and laboratory training.

In the early 1960s, the intake capacity was increased to 100, selection being made on the basis of an all-India competitive exam, followed by an interview. 40 were sent to Bombay and 60 to Calcutta, all 100 joining up together for the final year at Calcutta. The reason for this was the 3 years’ practical training was to be done in recognized Marine Workshops, mostly situated in Bombay and Calcutta in that era. During those three years we were to work as apprentices in workshops such as Calcutta Port Commissioners or CPC (later called Calcutta Port Trust), Garden Reach, British India Steam Navigation or BSN (called so at that time) and a few more in Calcutta, Bombay Port Trust, Mazagaon Docks etc in Bombay.

Unlike civilian institutions, it was established as a quasi-military Institute, directly under the President of India, under the umbrella of the Ministry of Shipping and Transport. The trained cadets would then be absorbed and employed by Indian shipping companies. Indian shipping, in 1966, was about to take a quantum leap through the help of heavily subsidised loans from the Government banking sector.

Like I said, it was a quasi-military institution, with naval uniforms, reveille through bugle calls, roll calls, parades, falling in for meals, falling in for boarding the college bus to workshop, falling in for this. that and the other. Sometimes, in our hurry to be on time, we would be 'falling' over each other.

==== To be continued in Blog 8 ====