Printing in Goa: back to the future Despite being the first to install a printing press in India, Goa's progress to print prosperity has been a slow one. But with industrialisation, it is now making up for lost time, Noel D'Cunha reports
Goa has a very special status in the history of the printed word in India and Asia. The first-ever book in the country was printed here. Four and a half centuries later, and riding on the impetus provided by industrialisation, Goa has emerged as a centre for trading and exports, and for business opportunities. Around the 1970s, mining became a flourishing business. Tourism, fisheries, agriculture, pharmaceutical and breweries also started taking roots. The last decade and a half has seen big pharma, brewery and IT companies like Cipla, Indoco, UB Group, Zenith and other food product giants set up base in Goa. With new products came the need for packaging and printing. Since then, a number of printing and packaging units have sprung up to take advantage of the emerging opportunities. There are about 30 big and medium-sized packaging plants and over 90 big and medium-sized printing units besides a number of small printing and screen printing units in the 22 industrial estates. The first movers Between 1940 and 1960 there were about four to six printers in Goa, of which JD Fernandes, Borkar Printers and Gomantak Printers, were the prominent ones. Prakash Borkar, chairman of the family-managed Borkar group, says: "Borkars started off with a small retail kiosk in 1910 in Goa and 35 years later, in 1945, it set up its first printing unit. The type of work Borkars did then was commercial printing jobs like cashbooks, visiting cards and wedding cards." Since then the Borkars have ventured into packaging, particularly boards, as they felt that this sector would see the largest growth. "And, it did grow. The packaging division of Borkar group is growing at 15-20% as against the overall group growth of 35% per annum," says Borkar. While the prominent players continued to do business, small entrepreneurs also jumped into the fray. Rohidas Bandekar, who was a teacher in a local school in Churchorem in south Goa, decided to leave his profession to start a press -- Bandekar Offset-- with a meagre investment of Rs 24,000. Bandekar says: "When I started my press in 1966, I did print jobs like bills and letterheads. Actual business started picking up after 1969, when a major work for Government Printing Press, for which I had tendered, came my way. There was no looking back from there on." Today, Bandekar has two Solnas, a Heidelberg single-colour press and two multilith single-colour machines and is eyeing a four-colour press to cater to multi-colour job demands. Perfectly placed The packaging for pharmaceutical industry alone in India is considered a sunrise industry, worth about Rs 30,000-crore and growing at a rate of 15% annually. The present downturn in financial trends notwithstanding, the printing industry in Goa, is set to see a steady flow of investment in infrastructure to meet the increasing local and export demands from IT, brewery, packaged food and pharma industries. Bosch Packaging Technology has recently inaugurated a new manufacturing facility at Verna Industrial Estate in Madgaon, which will produce and assemble packaging technology equipment for requirements such as candy wrapping, solid food and biscuit packaging, packing vials, ampoules and syringes. The company has already sold over 400 packaging machines and process equipments in India and exported an additional 75 machines. Manohar Packaging, which has already invested in a 12-colour Heidelberg CD-74, recently installed a Gietz 870 foil stamping machine, the very first in India. There are others, like the Herald print and packaging division, which is planning to buy a six-colour press; Shinde Packaging is planning a paper manufacturing unit in addition to purchasing a two-colour press; Goa Paper and Board Converters is planning to invest Rs 6 crore (Rs 60 million) in the next couple of years. The Borkar group has plants in Daman and Baddi (Himachal Pradesh), besides the one in Madgaon (Goa), with infrastructure like Manroland presses and a raft of die-cutting, inline stripping, holographic foil stamping and UV coating machines. Borkar, planning to bolster its printing capabilities in Goa and eyeing to become one of the biggest players in the packaging sector in India, says: "This is a very exciting time for the company and we are looking forward to adding the extra capacity to our existing reputation for excellent customer care." Borkar's clients include HLL, Kellogs, Wockhardt and Tata Tetley among others. Boaventura Ferrao, director of print and packaging division at Herald Publication, which has pharma and liquor companies among others as their clients, says: "With the six-colour press that we are planning to buy, we hope to fulfil our highest expectations in terms of quality and production capability for full-colour print and packaging requirements." CTP, though not in vogue, is being discussed as an option to upgrade, while digital printing is gaining in popularity. There are about eight to 10 digital services providers in Goa. Suraj.com Business Centre, had upgraded from being a copier centre to a full-fledged digital service centre after installation of an HP 5500PS, which followed the purchase of Xerox DC 5000, made last year. The company is continuing with its ambitious expansion plans. Prakash Gawas, owner of the company, who has invested in a new site, says: "We're looking at all aspects of diversification and entering into other markets." The company is also planning to add another digital press to provide its customers more flexibility, such as personalisation. The newspaper war Post-liberation, newspapers entered a new era. In the run up to the first general elections to the assembly of the then Union Territory of Goa, Daman and Diu, at least five Marathi dailies and one in English were started. Today, Navhind Times, the first English-daily is fighting for readership space with Herald Times and The Gomantak Times and the 2008-launched Goa-edition of the Times of India. Besides there is Gomantak, Tarun Bharat, Navprabha, Pudhari, Goa Times, Sanatan Prabhat, Govadoot -- all in Marathi and Sunaparant in Devanagiri-script Konkani. Goa Doot is the latest entrant. The Navhind Times prints 40,000 copies at its plant in Panjim while the Times of India has a print run of 50,000 printed at Elegant Offset Printers in Mapusa. Herald Times prints the most number of copies at 56,000. The other publications have a print run of not more than 10,000 copies. The entry of Times of India, with maximum number of colour pages has literally bulldozed itself into the Goan newspaper sector. It has also prompted its rival Navhind Times to upgrade its facilities. Gazikhan Kittur, press manager at Navhind Times, says: "We are installing a Newline 16 at our Verna plant, after which we plan to go all colour. We are also planning to upgrade the present pre-press system to enhance our quality and look." Looking to consolidate the Times of India's position, Ashok Dhond, managing director at Elegant says: "With the existing Newslines and Cityline Express Tower presses, we can comfortably print more than the present print-run of 50,000. But keeping in mind future growth and to ease the workflow, we will soon be installing a Krause CTP system. With this system we will also fall in line with other printing plants of the Times." Ferrao who also manages Herald's Verna plant, feels that their newspaper Herald Times is well and truly entrenched in the Goan market. This, he says, is achieved with the present set-up and is good enough for any marginal increase. Time to change While the printing and packaging sector is doing well, there are some who view the future, at least the near future with scepticism. The feeling from some quarters is that the sector is becoming ultra-competitive. "Some individual companies are excellent," says Jaibir S Siwach, managing director of Classic Packaging Industry, whose company is decently placed as far as output is concerned. Siwach has planned an investment in new machinery, but is unwilling to execute it, not at least for a year. He says: "I have put my plans on hold for the time being. In the last couple of years, some small operators have invaded the print market by installing very old presses purchased at throwaway prices. They are doing jobs at very low margins and are able to sustain because of low quality investment. These printers are destroying themselves as well as those who are the serious players." He is of the opinion that sooner than later these machines will give away forcing these operators to either discontinue or invest in new machinery, which will automatically bring the business back to normal. The Goa print and packaging industry's other bane is skills shortages. Fredrick Noronha, a journalist and editor of the recently published book, In Black and White, which gives insiders' stories about the press (journalists in newspapers) in Goa, says: "As much as the laid-back attitude of the Goans, it is also a fact that the skilled person does not want to work in Goa and prefers to go to bigger cities. Add to this the fact that the unskilled cannot be gainfully employed." This apart, there is a general tendency among the Goan workforce to accept a nine to five job with fixed holidays, which may not be an option that is available with the printing industry. Prashant Shinde of Shinde Packaging, Panjim who has orchestrated the All Goa Paper Printing and Packaging Association into formation, feels that a "cohesive and united approach" is needed to tackle the problems such as availability of raw material and load-shedding besides skills gap, faced by the printers. Conclusion Going back to print in Goa, the first phase of printing, which started in 1556, lasted only till the 17th century when the last book was rolled out. The second press came only in 1821, almost two centuries later. Today, India's packaging industry is estimated to be Rs 30,000-crore and the print industry is projected to grow to Rs 23,200-crore by 2011. The printers in Goa will need to tap the resources they need to grasp their share. They cannot afford to take the eye off the ball this time around. Courtesy PrintWeek India http://www.printweek.com