Frontier Publications fortifying to lead all
Asomiya Khabar ranks second largest vernacular daily
Recognition of regional players would be impossible if we go by the titles surfacing only at the national level. Confined in the niche regional markets are various dailies and magazines noticeably outstanding in their own ways. And (contract) printers of those titles are no way inferior to the big giants running on to print national titles. Frontier Publications Pvt Ltd located far off the city of Guwahati in a serene Kalapahar area in Assam is one such regional leader publishing its own Assamese daily Asomiya Khabar and other popular magazines and weeklies. P D Goswami, chief circulation manager of the company shares the past and present of this printing press in an exclusive interview with All About Newspapers.
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ssam is home to various popular dailies and magazines circulated at length across North East India. Frontier Publications Pvt Ltd is one of the region’s premier newspaper presses incepted in 2001 with sole publication of its widely acclaimed Assamese daily Asomiya Khabar. The company came to the limelight when Asomiya Khabar was positioned as the second largest circulated vernacular daily in the region. This vernacular daily is famed with the certification from Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) for its mammoth circulation. “Born to produce this daily and we are still surviving in the name and fame of Asomiya Khabar,” says Goswami proudly.
Lateral view of Frontier Publications building
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Big turn
The year 2003 marked a new bend in the business of Frontier Publications as the company began to adopt contract printing. In addition to the publications in Assamese were a bunch of titles in English, Hindi and Bengali in the company’s list of contract publishers. Leading Hindi daily Pratah Khabar and weekly news magazines like Prat Jyoti and Nothami Samay are some of the popular titles get printed at Frontier Publications and circulated all over Assam and neighbouring areas.
Increasingly printing a gamut of titles in different languages, Frontier Publications boasts of being a house producing all kinds of publications under its roof. Eastern Chronicle (English daily), Dainik Jugashankha (Bengali), Adinor Sambad and Dainik Batoni Kakot (Assamese) are those daily newspapers for which the company burns its midnight oil to deliver them every morning in guaranteed quality. “We also began to print a separate Jorhat (around 265 km from Guwahati) edition of Asomiya Samay since 2004 at our new facility set up in the same area,” mentions Goswami.
Ideal facility
Both printing presses in Guwahati and Jorhat run with the latest updates of service and technology, which meet the changes taking place in the region’s newspaper market. Guwahati unit is equipped with a four-unit (2 colour and 2 b/w) Ronald Super having 30,000 cph capacity and an Orient web offset presses and that in Jorhat is with a four-unit (1 colour and 3 b/w) Ronald Standard web offset machine running at 16,000 iph. Strength of 200 skilful staffs operates the two presses spreading over an area of 10,000 sq ft (Guwahati) and 5,000 sq ft (Jorhat). “We collectively print around 1,40,000 copies of newspapers everyday. Of the newspapers having an average of 14 pages, four are normally in colour,” details Goswami.
Remoteness of Frontier Publications’ location does not bother any publisher to reach them. In addition to the quality and consistency in products, the company boasts of its postpress and distribution facility. “We have full-fledged packaging unit and our eight delivery trucks help companies pick up and drop their products at their destinations,” mentions Goswami.
Prominent point
Asked about the in-house pre-press process, Goswami explains, “Plate making is done manually and the inks we use are from Micro Inks.” Using indigenous standard newsprints of 45, 46 and 47 gsm, the quality assurance is one major aim Frontier Publications never defocused. “Our printing quality also counts a lot to make Asomiya Khabar attain the status of the second largest vernacular daily in the region,” says Goswami.
North East India’s diversified newspaper industry consists of a myriad of newspapers belonged to different dialects. And English dailies have eaten major portion of the region’s readership and the rest are distributed among the vernacular titles. Defeating all intricacies in the highly competitive market of the region, Asomiya Khabar finds its podium to circulate 1,10,036 copies (ABC data). Goswami aspires that the next move of Frontier Publications will be to benchmark broader business to top the region’s market.
