19-member joint family boosts Arputha in Chennai

Arputha Prints was set up in 2002 by Anthony Raj who worked in the famous Menaka Cards for 13 years. When he decided to start his own business, he had knowledge and skills but did not have enough the funds. He dared to start screen printing business by mortgaging his wife’s jewelry for Rs 70,000.

Arputha started off with manual screen printing (one table) on a 500 sq/ft rented place. Then we shifted to a little bigger rented place of 700 sq/ft. Now we have 3400 sq/ft plus two (ground + 1st floor) production facilities. Before buying Grafica Nano-Print plus, they had five manual printing tables.

Now Arputha Prints has over 25 types of machinery and equipment.

Anthony Raj said, "We share maximum happiness with minimum complaints and that is the secret of our joint family. As managers of our family business, we give time for family and business in equal ratio - 50:50. We reach work at 9 am and are back at home by 9 pm. And the inheritance of ‘one family system’ is getting percolated to the next generation - our children who are in the age group of 6 years to 19 years."

He added, "We offer spot UV, hot stamping, lamination and other print finishing service to nearly 300 offset printers. Also, we do packaging (garment box, wedding boxes, and pharma cartons, etc). For wedding cards, we have customers in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Pondicherry. We also have three wedding card showrooms. We also undertake book printing."

The company has a year on year growth of 20-30%. Of this, 50% revenue is from packaging, and 50% from commercial printing.

Interestingly enough, the company has employed 20 women out of its staff of 45. As Anthony Raj said, "This is because, most of our works such as wedding card and packaging also involve sit and work (handworks) which are comfortable for women and they are careful at work, they have dedication and commitment."

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