One copy of the Constitution for each Nepali voter

The Federation of Nepal Printers’ Association (FNPA) is four years old and boasts of more than 2,000 members. There are more than 500 Nepalis at the show, of which 55 delegates are ‘officially’ attending PrintPack 2017 on all five days. The leader of the group is Madhav KC, who has been the president of the FNPA for two years now.

17 Feb 2017 | By PrintWeek India

He says, “The first four-colour press arrived in 1980. Now, we have approximately 100 four-colour offset kit, of which ten would be brand new.” Most of the new machines can be seen on the shopfloor of firms like Janak Education, Pashupathi Printing Press, Trigun and Triyuga Printing Press.

Even today a vast majority of the workforce in Nepal are engaged in agriculture. Since a large proportion of its area is hilly and mountainous, the arable land is limited to 18%. Which is why, Madhav KC feels the print industry could be a solid industry in Nepal. Some of the FNPA members epitomise this with operations that require basic machinery in a small space and taskforce of five to ten to help with design, processing and printing.

This is the season of local elections in Nepal. And so many small printers are busy with printing of pamphlets, party manifestos, promotional posters and ballot papers. But the project that is the pride of Nepal is the printing of the new Constitution of Nepal. The government is committed that to distribute ‘one book for one voter.’