Kala Jyothi: the magazine printer with a difference!

Situated in the ill maintained vicinity of roads within the MIDC industrial area of Taloja in Navi Mumbai, no body from outside can make out that the country’s most famous and high glossy magazines are being printed inside the building using high end web offset and sheet-fed presses. A brief visit to their Navi Mumbai plant by P&P editor, SK Khurana reveals the working of this Hyderabad headquartered Kala Jyothi Process Pvt Ltd. An ISO 9001 certified company, established as a small letterpress unit in 1946, has come a long way and stands today as ‘India’s one of the reputed magazine printers.’ Located at four different locations serving national and regional clients for magazines, newspaper supplements, books and commercial jobs, Kala Jyothi has achieved a whooping turnover figure of Rs 150 crore. “Our segment wise splits between commercial jobs verses publications (magazines, supplements and books) jobs stands as 33:67 percent respectively, and for all the commercial jobs undertaken by us, we use papers from our stock. Whereas all paper is supplied to us for publication jobs,” updated Dev Alapati, executive director at Kala Jyothi Process Pvt Ltd handling all marketing activities related to publications.

Revealing further the little known facts, about their Mumbai plant, Dev informs that this unit came into being as customers’ driven, “Two of our major customers, based in Mumbai but getting their jobs done in our Hyderabad unit, pushed us to open a local facility in Mumbai itself. Though there were already around 15-20 heatset presses installed in Mumbai, we took the initiative in the year 2007 and feel that the decision was right. As of now, in Mumbai facility we have a space of around 20,000 sq ft and a regular staff of 24 individuals taking care of our two high end web presses namely Goss M 130 and Toshiba B2T and one sheet-fed Mitsubishi 3F apart from matching pre-press/post-press equipments. We do engage contract labour as and when required specially in post press activities,” informed Dev, adding “Our latest addition of Goss M130 heat-set commercial web offset with 578 cut-off and Tigra perfect binder from Muller Martini in Taloja facility has generated whole lot of confidence amongst magazine publishers and today we boast handing prestigious titles like Chip, Filmfare, Search, T-3, Campaign India, Meri Saheli, etc.” With a print order ranging from 5,000 to 1,50,000 copies as a group we handle and produce regularly around twelve titles of different magazines. It is interesting to note that at Kala Jyothi, pre-press operations are centralized at Hyderabad facility. Jobs received at any location are sent to Hyderabad, checked with all parameters, pre-fighting done, etc. Soft proofing sent to clients for approval. After getting due approval jobs are transferred to respective facility which is equipped with thermal CtP for production. This centralized pre-press facility is fully equipped with all appropriate software and managed by experienced team of around 60 individuals.

Necessary precautions ensuring perfect reproduction not just end here as they further take out Epson proofs using 1-bit Star proofing which becomes a “matching proof” for the machine operators working at any of the facilities. However, they are also in the process of eliminating this exercise of taking out the digital proofs and are investing in Eizo monitors, which are capable to offer WYSIWYG.

The services offered by Kala Jyothi not end at just 4-colour printing and binding of magazines. They also offer print services for inserts produced out of using high quality coated paper comprising just a leaflet or eight-page booklets. As value additions, creating multiple ‘tabs’ within the magazine for interested advertisers opting for innovation are also feasible at Kala Jyothi. Then while delivering copies of magazines, stuffing into poly-bags with small samples/sachet, etc is also facilitated by them.

All must be good and comfortable at Kala Jyothi to handle and produce any kind of jobs and keep their clients happy and satisfied. But what challenges Kala Jyothi faces in executing the jobs in ‘toto?’ Only one – says Dev and that is the clients’ general miss-out deadlines in providing them the inputs but wants them to supply finished jobs as planned. This makes their schedules hay-wire. But the dedicated team of workforce at Kala Jyothi makes it possible to keep their clients smiling always. And the journey goes on!