CMA felicitates Kapila with Life Time Achievement Award

The print industry stalwart O N Kapila – a name whose expertise and knowledge is respected globally was recently felicitated with ‘Life Time Achievement Award’ by Container Manufacturers’ Association (CMA), Mumbai in a glittering felicitation programme. Kapila was honored all over India as well as in other countries for his lifelong contributions to the print industry many times. In true sense he is ‘Bhishmpitamah’ of printing industry in India and also the God father of many industry professionals due to his knowledge and life time contribution to the print industry. The association salutes to his vision and the technical excellence.

O N Kapila was born in 1930 and which incidentally coincides with the birth of Metal Printing Industry in India. He started his career as an apprentice in 1946 in a company in Aligarh and then moved to Agra as a manager of a Tin Printing Press. He finally moved to Mumbai in 1952 and set up his own entity the ‘Metal Printers Company’ in March 1954 and never looked back since his passion towards the industry and his work has seen him appear like a father figure to one and sundry. He has always been around whenever someone has approached him for any advice. He has also been very vocal about the problems plaguing the industry.

Although listing of the achievements of the legendry Kapila is vast enough altogether but to mention a few, most of which remain first for the Indian print industry include: started the scanning process right in 1971. Printed very popular and beautiful cash collecting boxes and subsequently did scanning jobs for the Govt of India Press, Nasik for the ‘Dr Salim Ali Bird Series’ stamps. He gave concept of ‘light fastener’ which basically involved a special blending of pigment to guarantee anti fading for three years to outdoor signage jobs and introduced the seven colour process in printing on metal. He also prepared a calendar on metal, based on the Pantone Colour Chart in 1984 for the All India Federation of Master Printers (AIFMP), a chart that is still considered a Bible amongst the industry.

He has also been felicitated by the Ministry of Finance, Govt of India for the development of the Small Scale Industries. And he is a recipient of ‘Special Technical Achievement Awards’ by the International Metal Decorators Association (IMDA), USA for their stunning and challenging outdoor poster entries during fifth IMDA-LTG-Crabtree Excellence in Quality Competition (in the series were posters of Coca-cola, Pepsi Cola, Goldflake, Wills Filter, Lux soap, Lifebuoy soap, and ThumsUp). These paneled signs were over 24″ high and over 6′ long when mounted on sign backing board.