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Delhi Cloth & General Mills

Conglomerate companies of India

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ5253739 ↗
Source-derived summary

DCM Textiles, formerly known as Delhi Cloth & General Mills, founded in 1889 by Lala Chunnamal, Master Shiv Pershad and Rai Bahadur Ram Kishen Das Gurwale, is an Indian conglomerate which was initially a textile business which opened its first mill in Delhi. Starting from late 1980s and early 1990s, as a result of legal and financial challenges the company was split into several industry segments under the DCM and DCM Shriram Group branding, (not to be confused with Shriram Group), and diversified into automotive, bioseeds, cement, chemicals, farms, fertilizers, pvc, sugar, textiles, windows and door, yarns, etc. Some of its entities are DCM Textiles Co at Hisar, DCM Sri Ram Mills, Fenesta, etc.

History

The founders

Lala Chunnamal, Master Shiv Pershad and Rai Bahadur Ram Kishen Das Gurwale founded the company in 1889 and its first factory, located in Delhi, took two years to build. The company prospered through 1907 and in 1909 Sir Shri Ram joined the company as an assistant to his father during a period of decline. Under Ram's guidance the company regained a prosperous pace. The company went through a significant financial crisis in 1917 but recovered after it received a large contract from the British Army at the time of the First World War. The mill was engaged primarily in the cotton and sugar trades and became one of the top mills in northern India. The company opened a second cloth mill and two sugar mills in 1925. It launched DCM Chemical Works in 1941 and Daurala Distillery in 1942.

Editorial summary

“Delhi Cloth & General Mills” enters the record as conglomerate companies of India. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Delhi, Cloth and General can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1889, 1907, 1909, 1917—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1889. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Delhi, Cloth and General.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Delhi Cloth & General Mills” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Delhi, Cloth and General provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5253739. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1889, 1907, 1909 and 1917.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Locating named sources
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  2. Expand the search: follow Delhi Cloth & General Mills primary sources, Delhi Cloth & General Mills archive and Delhi research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Delhi Cloth & General Mills” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.