“Ours is a world class country, why can’t we have world class presses,” he said.

Comment on the remarks of the minister, Vinod Kumar Jain, chairman for government relations at All India Federation of Master Printers (AIFMP), said, “It is heartening to note that the government of India has advised its press managers to modernise their infrastructure.”

He however, lamented the lack of good engineering or regional institutes, which imparts training in printing. “There is an immediate need to develop skilled workmen to operate the modern machinery and equipment that would be required to meet the expected printing requirements in the 12th five year plan.”

He further added that there are very few Institutes and even fewer, which have presses installed for training purpose. “These machines have become obsolete and there’s an immediate need to replace the same with the most modern state-of-the-art equipment which is necessary for imparting practical training and developing the requisite skills, required today.”

The AIFMP has taken up the issue of both training institutes and strengthening them with modern machinery with the government and has suggested that a sum of Rs 1.5 crore be immediately provided to twenty existing engineering and regional institutes and accordingly allocate Rs 30 crore to enable them to purchase the latest machinery and equipment to impart necessary practical training for developing the requisite skilled workforce.

This is in line with the report of the working group on paper and paper sector for the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) submitted to the planning commission by the department of industrial policy and promotion, ministry of commerce & Industry, government of India, at the insistence of AIFMP,” concluded Jain.