Friday, Apr 26, 2024 | Last Update : 05:24 PM IST
Minto Road press to get Rs 338 crore revamp
In addition, the multi-colour printing, which is not available presently, will also be made available.
New Delhi: The high-security government press at Minto Road will be refurbished at a cost of Rs 338 crore, an initiative that would increase its production capacity from 16 lakh pages per day to 45 lakh pages per day.
The press meets all printing needs of both the houses of Parliament, including day-to-day parliamentary proceedings, question lists, bills, acts, synopsis, reports, debates, who’s who and Parliamentary Committee reports, besides the needs of Cabinet Secretariat and various ministries and departments of the Central government. The “Gazette of India” notifications are published by Department of Publication and are printed by the Government of India Printing Presses regularly.
As the demand for printing material has been going up in each session of the House, the press was reportedly not in a position to cope with day-day-printing facilities. While the machines and equipment being used are of 1980-2005 vintage and some of them installed as early as in 1968, the non-availability of spare parts is posing a hindrance to the smooth functioning of the press.
According to an official statement, the present building of the press will be redeveloped at a cost of Rs 238.56 crore into three blocks of ground plus six floors suitable to locate modern equipment to be installed at a cost of Rs 100 crore.
“Urban development minister M.Venkaiah Naidu has accepted the recommendation of the standing finance committee in this regard. With the initiative, the production capacity of the printing press will increase from the present 16-lakh pages per day (60 crore pages per year) of A-5 size to 45 lakh pages per day (164.96 cr pages per year), an increase of 177 per cent,” it added.
In addition, the multi-colour printing, which is not available presently, will also be made available.
The entire redevelopment and modernisation work would be completed within 52 months.
Due to lack of multi-colour printing facility at present, the printing of annual reports of various ministries and departments is being outsourced.
