Government Polytechnic, Karad is one of the oldest technical institutes in Satara district of Maharashtra. The institute is a part of an academic brain child of visionary educational policy plan of late Y.B. Chavan, the 1st Chief Minister of Maharashtra State. Technical Education contributes substantially to the Socio Economic development of the Country as a whole. The development & sustenance of the industrial sector is entirely dependent on the availability of trained manpower to perform the multidimensional activities needed to keep the wheel of industry running. The institute is located at educational campus known as Vidyanagar in Karad city which is placed at the confluence of the 2 rivers—Krishna & Koyana. Also Karad is located on NH 4 section of Golden Quadrilateral of National Highways of India. The campus is distanced from Pune & Mumbai at 165 km & 330 km respectively. In order to reach Karad, one could get transport facility in 3 modes – by Road, Rail or Air. Late Y.B. Chavan saw the dream of great social reformation & overall development through education both general & technical for the people of Maharashtra. With this noble cause the institute is established in the year of 1957. At the time of its beginning, the Institute was located at Ogalewadi (a village near Karad) & offered Diploma only in Civil Engineering. 68 students got enrolled for this course. In 1958, 2 more courses were started viz. Mechanical Engineering & Electrical Engineering. Later with increasing number of students & courses, educational setup was shifted to independent building at Vidyanagar, Karad. At present Institute has 600 students intake capacity for 6 different courses at 1st year including 180 intake for 2nd Shift (Minority) which started in 2012 -13. During 1st decade of Institute i.e. 1957-1967, there was not a single girl student enrolled whereas, toady there are approximately more than 47% girls taking technical education in the Institute.

Vision: To generate knowledge oriented, technically well equipped & visionary human resources who are majority from rural sector to meet ever changing industrial challenges in particular & society in general at large.

Mission: To ensure & to facilitate well coordinated educational resources & productive learning resources, in terms of cognitive material inputs & infrastructure so as to transform matriculated adolescent into all round developed, morally – ethically, self - righteous individuals who have competitive knowledge & trained technical skill - set with themselves where such intermediate technical manpower will confidently face each & every challenge given to them by current time, industrial circumstances & changing scenario of society.