Government press to be upgraded

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 24

The government press located at Minto Road will be upgraded with all modern technical printing equipment at a cost of Rs 338.56 crore following recommendation of the Standing Finance Committee that has been accepted by Union Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiaha Naidu, a government official said.

The entire redevelopment and modernisation work would be completed in 52 months from now, he said.

The official said the present building of the press would be redeveloped at a cost of Rs.238.56 crore into three blocks of ground plus six floors suitable to locate the modern technology and equipment to be installed at a cost of Rs 100 crore.

At present, the machines and equipment being used are of 1980-2005 vintage and some of them installed as early as in 1968, resulting in high cost of production, demand for printing not being met in time, besides non-availability of spare parts requiring their re-fabrication, the official added.

With redevelopment and modernisation, the production capacity of the Government of India Printing Press will increase from the present 16 lakh pages per day of A-5 size to 45 lakh pages per day marking an increase of 177 per cent in production capacity. Multi-colour printing, which is not available presently, will be made available, he said.

The government press meets all printing needs of both the Houses of Parliament including day-to-day parliamentary proceedings, question lists, bills, acts, synopsis, reports, debates, who’s who and Parliamentary Committee reports, besides the needs of Cabinet Secretariat and various ministries and departments of the Central government.

He said due to lack of multi-colour printing facility at present, such work as in the case of printing of annual reports of various ministries and departments is being outsourced.