Bengali daily Uttarbanga Sambad
upbeat with Naph Koncept presses
One of the presses in Siliguri facility
fitted with first mRC-3D system in eastern India
Being the largest-circulated daily in northern West Bengal, Uttarbanga Sambad boasts an overwhelming 55 percent market share while its competitors share the rest among themselves. Current circulation of the Bengali daily is 1,52,673, which is more than double of its nearest competitor. Certain vital exertions are behind the success story of Uttarbanga Sambad—Naph Graphics, which supplied two of its Naph Koncept presses to the newspaper, is one of them. Thanglenhao Haokip from All About Newspapers visits the daily’s Siliguri production facility to explore how they do what they are into.
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Launched in 1980 as a single-town edition in Siliguri, Uttarbanga Sambad is today the largest circulated regional languages newspaper in northern West Bengal, with four sub-regional editions at Siliguri, Malda, Cooch Behar and Alipurduar. Since its inception, the regional daily has been continuously making efforts to evolve and improve and to strike at the heart of every East Indian by tapping the untapped markets. The Bengali daily has therefore upgraded its machine portfolio recently, adopting two Naph Koncepts with 4 towers each and two folders installed in its Siliguri production facility of 500x200 sq ft.
To meet the growing regional demands, Uttarbanga Sambad has installed two parallel lines of high-speed all colour Naph Koncept presses from Naph Graphics. Both the presses are featured with staggered blanket cylinders to achieve optimum stability in colour registration.
“Our installed capacity is over 1.6 lakh copies per day; the Siliguri edition alone has a print run in excess of 80,000 copies,” says Shekhar Karande, production manager, Uttarbanga Sambad. According to the recent readership survey, the newspaper has a readership of over 21 lakhs.
Koncept after Koncept
The first Koncept press at Uttarbanga Sambad was installed in 2013; and a year later in 2014 added another one. Both machines have a combined capacity of printing 32 pages in colour. “Earlier we used to print only four of our 16-page newspaper on a conventional press; later on, with the arrival of the two new and upgraded Koncepts, all 16 pages are dressed in colour,” mentions Shekhar, adding that the Naph presses are designed in such a way that every unit has been made accessible. This has done a yeoman service to the maintenance staff as servicing becomes far simpler than it used to be on their earlier press. However, Shekhar only wishes that the plates in the Koncepts are removable on the reverse rather than forward, which could save 60 percent of setup time.
Perfect colour registration
Koncept is a very capable machine, but the publisher of Uttarbanga Sambad needed something more in perfection and accuracy in colour. Therefore, a year after the second Koncept was commissioned the newspaper went for a strategic investment by installing a Q.I. Press Controls’ mRC-3D for colour register control. Shekhar narrates that with the installation of mRC-3D, they could make considerable accuracy in colour registration as well as savings in terms of time and cost of production. Moreover, on the printing floor, a Kodak CtP machine is installed.
Dedicated team
On the maintenance front the newspaper is well staffed by experience hands. “We have to have in-house machine maintenance staff,” Shekhar says. A 36-member staff—12 maintenance and 24 production professionals—work in two shifts; some to keep the machines in working order, while others to print and get the newspaper out of the production unit on time. Supplements and inserts, such as a Sunday supplement, a 100-page monthly magazine, two 48-page annual magazines and a 300-400-page annual book on the history and culture of the region are all printed at the Siliguri facility.
Kodak plate processor at Uttarbanga Sambad
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Long-distance editions of the newspaper are printed earlier than those for nearer markets so that readers receive copies of the newspaper just in time in the morning. For instance, the Malda edition goes to the press by 10 pm, and after an hour the printed copies are shipped out of the production facility at Siliguri, by 5 am the shipment reaches Malda market. Supplements and inserts such as a Sunday supplement, a 100-page monthly magazine, two 48-page annual magazines and a 300-400-page annual book on the history and culture of the region are all printed at the publisher’s Siliguri printing facility.
Print is still alive
Despite the global concern, particularly across the western world, that print newspaper is dying, the stories from the regional markets like northern West Bengal script a different tale. This is amply reflected as Shekhar pronounces that India’s demography signifies the potential of the printed newspaper industry, particularly in the regional segment. Newspaper readership in the regional markets is not expected to see a decline any time in the near future, he asserts. Internet access on mobile phone and personal computer are high in big cities or metros, which explains the decline or stagnation of printed newspaper readership in those markets.
Naph Koncept equipped with mRC-3D (left)
and Second Naph Koncept at Uttarbanga Sambad (right)
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“At the regional level, high-speed broadband and data connections that primarily drive digital content consumption are almost non-existent,” finds out Shekhar. “Yet, we do upload all our news by midnight for free consumption.” And the level of education and purchasing power of regional news readers also have a direct bearing on the growth of printed newspaper at the regional level, according to the production manager of the newspaper. The other reasons for growth of printed newspaper at the regional level are the ease of reading (holding and feeling a printed copy has its own charm) and documentation (archiving).
Next step is automation
Uttarbanga Sambad knows very well that until the process of automation comes full circle there’s no escaping wastage of time and money. Hence, to be in sync with technology the next big plan for the newspaper is to take post press and mailroom processes to automation. “With an upgrade in automation, manual works will be eliminated, which will result in saving time and increasing mailroom speed, thereby bringing down cost and increasing profitability,” concludes Shekhar.
