Guru Jambheshwar University
as birthplace of young printing professionals
Every new academic session witnesses
increasing enrolments of girl students
The popular maxim ‘some professionals are born, not made’ is not fully liable in context
of printing professionals. For printing professionals, perfection is garnered by and large
through modest academic trainings or courses. In this, Anjan Kumar Baral, chairperson,
Department of Printing Technology, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science & Technology
(Hisar) throws light upon the varsity’s printing technology course structures, lab training and
success stories in a chat with Jyaneswar Laishram from All About Newspapers.
Anjan Kumar Baral
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Fully-packed classrooms at the
Department of Printing Technology
in Guru Jambheshwar University
of Science & Technology in Hisar are
where flock 400 students perusing different
courses in the current academic session. The
department is said to be the largest in the
country in terms of its basic infrastructures,
teaching staff and number of students in a
batch. “Printing technology courses we offer
are BTech (eight semesters), MTech (four
semesters) and PhD programme for two
years,” mentions Anjan, adding that around
40 theory papers and 24 practical classes
bring the whole world of printing under
the gambit of the syllabi. The department
has eleven permanent faculty, eight part
timers and six guest lecturers.
Inclusive training facilities
Introduced in the year 1996, the university’s
Department of Printing Technology is indeed
a torchbearer in providing world-class print
education in the northern Indian region. The
World Bank under its technical education
and quality improvement programme helped
financially to open the department. The
practical lab of the department is equipped
with a four-colour flexo printing machine,
a four-colour gravure printing machine and
a 4+4 web offset machine, among others.
Anjan says a subsequent proposal has been
made for inclusion a few more machines
and a CtP to the lab.
Fully-equipped practical lab
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RICOH India showed its generosity to
the department by donating a digital print
application lab where equipped RICOH Pro
C901 and RICOH Pro 8100, a perfect binder
and a laminator worth Rs 1.5 crore. This newly
unveiled digital print lab in the department
provides students hands-on practice of digital
press, which brings storming possibilities
in the market. “Team of technicians from
RICOH India regularly turns up in regular
intervals to check wear and tear of the
machines,” remarks Anjan, adding proudly
that Guru Jambheshwar University is the
first varsity in the country having a digital
printing lab and this is how its students are
trained in accordance to the trends keep
drifting in the industry.
Opening of the digital print application lab
in the Department of Printing Technology
is tantamount to the opening of a new
chapter introducing the students a whole
gamut of prevailing print applications, such
as personalisation, print-on-demand, variable
data printing and such kinds, which serve
gainfully alongside the traditional offset
technologies. Anjan observes the fact that
print quality of digital presses these days
are closer or almost similar to that of
offset machines.
Workshops and conferences
Department building
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Providing the students an exposure to the
ongoing trends and traditions in the market,
seminars and workshops are organised
regularly at the department. “In July last
year, we had a two-day national conference,
sponsored by All India Federation of Master
Printers (AIFMP), during which we designed
two national level course curriculums—one
for diploma and another degree programme,”
describes Anjan, adding, “We developed the
curriculums in that way under the guideline
from UGC to make a common and consistent
course structure in all universities around the
country, whether it could be in Maniplal,
Pune, Kolkata, Chennai.”
Regular meets and conferences attended
by alumni and industry experts from India
and aboard at the department mull over
case studies, career graphs of experienced
professionals, which eventually motivate
the young academicians. “February this
year, we organised our first international
research conference in collaboration with
AIFMP, during which RICOH India had
inaugurated the digital print lab,” says Anjan,
adding that they are in view of making
it an annual campus event. Such constant
interaction between students and industry
people, according to Anjan, is practically
a desired move to let the students feel
the fresh developments surfacing in the
market. In addition, he says the university
is always in pursuit of constructive advices
and suggestions from the industry experts to
upgrade or revise the course structures
and teaching methodologies.
Students from all around
“Ours is the only department in
the country where students from
remotest corners of the country
turn up, not only to pursue printing
education, but carving a career out
of it,” mentions Anjan. In this, 15
percent seats in the department are
reserved for outstation students. To
the question of what students want
these days, entrepreneurship or
salaried job, Anjan explains, “I used
to take class on entrepreneurship papers;
in my observation, nowadays students are
very clear about their future. It’s quite
obvious that they prefer white collar jobs
when they step into the industry. As soon
as they are able to grab the nerve of the
industry after working for a decade or so,
entrepreneurship comes naturally to their
mind.” He has witnessed a number of
students from the department running or
leading big printing firms in the industry.
The idea of ‘printing being a mandominated
industry’ will someday become a
myth as the tide of girl students enrolling
into the department is increasing in every
new academic session. “It’s a fact that the
printing industry will no longer be trapped
only for male professionals,” observes
Anjan, adding, “In every new session,
10 out of 40 students on an average in
a batch are girls and the proportion is
escalating every year.”
Future perfect
Advents of e-mail, online news routes,
personal mobile gadgets might have replaced
printed documents to an extent. But the fact,
according to Anjan, about the development
in the printing industry is a story on the
other side where everything right from
pizza cover to books are getting printed on
highly sophisticated presses and machines.
If the printing industry is in stake, he
says, some of these printing firms around
Hisar might have shut down, but none has
done it so far; so the future of printing is
bright as ever.
Special focus on newspapers
Newspaper printing or web offset machine operation is quite challenging to both students
and teachers, according to Anjan. “Unlike other machines, running a web offset press in
the practical class is highly expensive; a big volume of consumables is required for this
and quality newsprints are not available in small cities like Hisar,” he narrates, adding
that if the machine in the lab runs for one hour, at least a roll of 300 kg has to be
fed. As part of the curriculum, the department arranges regular newspaper plant visits
for the students, in which the young academicians are privileged to experience onsite
operations of web offset presses.
Anjan feels that the newspaper segment is one of the lucratively growing arenas in the
current printing market of India. “I don’t think the threat of online news media against
printed newspapers is posing a big issue in the current Indian context,” he argues,
narrating, “Look at the increasing literacy rate of the country, which triggers newspaper
houses to move towards the markets of unexplored remote regions, in addition, various
new regional dailies, tabloids, weeklies are popping up in non-metro or tier II and III
cities.” In his viewpoint, the remote geographies of India are still away from full-scale
online news media penetration; people in these areas still consider printed newspapers
as a preferred choice against any online device to access news.
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