City-based Kamal Chopra elected new president of All-India Federation of Master Printers 

Ludhiana: City-based Kamal Chopra has been elected the new president of All-India Federation of Master Printers (AIFMP).
The elections were held on October 30-31.

Speaking to `City Air News’, he told that he is always committed to render service for the growth and development of the printing industry. He said that the industry had suffered heavily due to the pandemic situation. Even the government has imposed restrictions on the printing of diaries and calendars, which is a direct loss of the industry. He revealed that his first preference would be to watch the interests of the micro and small printers whose survival seem to be in danger. He added that printing industry in the country is dominated by micro and small units. He revealed that approximately there are 250,000 printers across the country. Of these printers, more than 85 per cent are facing financial crisis due to the situation arising due to pandemic situation.

Chopra said presently, they cannot think of organising physical meetings. He added this can be done once government restrictions are not there completely. However, he said they are going to conduct virtual meetings to run the routine affairs. He said they had conducted 249th and 250th governing council meetings on a virtual platform. These virtual meetings were a big success, he said.

To a question, he categorically stated that the festival session this year may prove to be worse for printers. However, he is optimistic that the situation will improve with passage of time.  He admitted that commercial printing has suffered heavily due to lockdown and other related situations and government notifications related to the printing industry. He also admitted that the present era of internet and digitisation is badly affecting the printing industry. 

He told that small and micro printers across the country, remained untouched with e-commerce till now. Under the present circumstances, the printers will have to learn the new ways of doing business, interacting with the customer and all others concerned. Nobody can stop this practice now. Rather, there are chances of further expansion of e-commerce in the future. In view of the present scenario, the AIFMP is organising webinars on e-commerce which are being addressed by the industry experts to highlight the areas of e-commerce for printing and packaging business.