Aligarh printing industry: yet not fully developed

Aligarh, a city in Uttar Pradesh, is famous for lock industries and for Aligarh Muslim University. Print and Publishing takes a tour of the city and sheds light on the present day Aligarh printing industry which is still in a dormant state. Though the city of Aligarh is fully developed and home to thousands of manufacturers, exporters and suppliers involved in the brass, bronze, iron and aluminium industries, the printing industry is not inline with the changing trends. Print & Publishing visited a few printers in the city and here’s what we found.

Hotline Future Point
–A lifeline for the local digital printing jobs

Strategically located at the Bhagwati Palace, Hotline Future Point offers digital printing solutions. “We are located in the center of this Aligarh market and have many walk-in customers,” says Vimal Verma, the owner of the outlet. “We get all kind of customers with various needs. For instance, there was a guy who had come here to get map printing solution at our shop, however, we could not do the same as we are still limited to print up to A3 size prints,” he says.

“At present, we have digital printers from Xerox only. We have installed Document Centre 451, perfect for scanning and colour printing documents. We also have two Xerox 5790 for better colour scanning and printing black and white pages,” shares Vimal. Coming to their corporate ties, Vimal enlisted organizations like Allahabad Bank, Union Bank and insurance biggies like LIC, which have huge number of requirements for departmental photocopies and documentation.

Operating in a 300 square feet outlet, Vimal has three persons working for him who are quite skilled to perform a number of printing and scanning jobs within minutes. While telling about his future plans, he expressed his desire to get into larger and jumbo kind of printing, with more upgraded machines under his production unit.

RK Color Studio
–Changing still image to live ones

Presenting a prefect saga of ‘Start-up India,’ way back before its actual introduction by the present government, Gaurav Gupta instituted RK Color Studio in 2012, presenting an inspirational entrepreneurship to the young aspirants. Gaurav started his career in client servicing at an age-old, Vicky Color Lab, under the able guidance of Rajiv Gupta, where he got to learn the nitty-gritties of this photo color business and made some eminent contacts. After working for a couple of years, Gaurav kickstarted his own set up for the sole purpose of album printing and binding.

His set-up houses Fuji 140, a photo generating machine from negative films and Frontier 350 PC 4657 for making smaller albums by pasting. More recently, they have added Konica Minolta Bizhub press C70hc installed in 2015.

Gaurav mentions that he majorly deals with more than 100 studios from Aligarh and nearby villages within a periphery of 30-40 km of Aligarh, including Akroli, Palwal, Dibai, Khair and Jattari. In their finishing section, they have two lamination machines, besides an efficient cutter.

With a staff of seven people, the photo lab is located in the basement of Bhagwati complex and occupies an area of 600 square feet. Gaurav plans to install advanced machines in near future.

GK Graphics
–A well known pre-press and press unit

An age old firm, GK Graphics, has been known for plate making for offset printers across the city. It has developed a lot within a course of time not only by diversifying into several verticals but also installing high-end digital machines at their production unit.

Their pre-press unit houses AMSKY machine and a CtCP machine from Watthour System, Delhi. Besides, they also house a film making machine, laser cutting machine, diecutting machine, auto bending machine, etc.

Under their digital printing unit, GM Print Solution houses Konica Minolta 1060 and Xerox 550 – perfect for short run production. According to Deepak of GK Print Solution, “In comparison to offset printing, digital presents a cheaper option to print copies up to 500 to 600 copies in colour as well as black and white format.”

Talking about their regular clients, Deepak enlisted offset printers like Uttpal Packaging, Anant Corrugators, etc, who need plates and die-cutting solutions. They also cater to students and faculties, to get their projects and dissertations printed. Besides, they also get many corporate clients for printing of business brochures and catalogues.

While sharing his plan of further expansion, Deepak highlights the need for an upgradation.

The printing industry in Aligarh is still not up to date and printers are also eyeing for upgradation.