Offset Printers Associations Celebrates Silver Jubilee

Ludhiana, 29 December, 2013: Offset Printers Associations (OPA) which only a quarter century ago was a fledging group with a handful of members has now established itself into a dynamic and influential organisation that provides a strong voice for the needs of printing community of Ludhiana.
Silver Jubilee celebrations of the Offset Printers Association (OPA) held at Guru Nanak Dev Bhawan, Ludhiana.
The OPA general secretary Kamal Chopra said, “OPA has had an illustrious past thanks to the contributions of our first generation of printers and I hope the field will continue to be enriched by the next generation of printers. We at OPA believe that serving the printing industry is our motive and for this we have tried to reach to all the printers located in and around Ludhiana. We have around 35 associations from small towns affiliated to OPA and we visit them and other cities regularly to educate the printers about the latest government schemes and new developments in printing. Another feather was added to OPA’s cap when it got the opportunity to host 144th GCA of All India Federation of Master Printers.”
OPA is currently working on various projects for the benefit of printing industry viz. a viz. “Print Yatra”, “Print Chetna” and Printing and Packaging Cluster, Ludhiana.
Under the Print Yatra project OPA carry our visits to printing associations or a group of printers in other cities and towns to motivate them to work jointly and come together for the upliftment of the printing industry. OPA provides them initial funds to form an association and extend all support and help that they may require. “Print Chetna” is a very unique and first of its kind project started by OPA where team goes to various government schools and colleges and try to educate the children about adopting printing as a career. Students are unaware of printing and its techniques whereas printing is the second largest business worldwide. It’s a small step to bring a change in the society.
All the Past presidents of the association were honored and others were remembered for their efforts to make the association capable of being what it is today.
Guests, K S Khurana, Dr. Rajander Anayath,Mr. C P Paul, T R Mahajan, S S Dhillon, Mahesh Khanna, Vinod Vitobha  were welcomed by Vice presidents Kushal Jain And Sanjay Gandhi.
Parveen Aggarwal (President, OPA) congratulated the members on the completion of 25 years of the associations, and gave a brief about its activities to the Printers who have gathered from all over North India. Aggarwal added that all this has been possible due to the tremendous efforts being put in by Kamal Chopra and the team. He also said that OPA will keep on working for the betterment of Printing Industry as a whole across the country.
President also dissolved the current team of OPA and the new team will sworn by next few days. Members were invited to join in the team to take the association to new horizons.
Presidents & members from various printing associations (Lucknow, Karnal, Jammu, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Phagwara, Moga, Sirhind, Patiala, Jagraon, Mansa, Gurdaspur, Bathinda and Muktsar ) were honoured by OPA on the occasion.
Printing units which are working with the same name a& style since last 25 years or more were also honored during the event. Rakesh Gupta (PL Printers) shared the kind of difficulties they used to face during those days as each n every letter was to composed by hand and printing process was very slow using Letterpress but now a days with the newer technology printing has become very fast the quality has also improved tremendously. Other printers also shared their experiences.
Dr. Rajinder Anayath, (World Renowned Printing Teacher) was the Guest of Honor, He delivered a speech  on “Significance of value in the modern media world” He also Congratulated the members on the event and praised about the systematic  working  & Activities being under taken by the association. He wished all the very best to OPA for its future endeavors.
S.S. Dhillon (Director, MSME) Appreciated OPAs efforts and congratulated the members on the occasion. He asked other members associations to come forward and take the initiative to start the cluster programs and take benefit of other available government schemes. He said MSME is always more than ready to help the industry.
S S Rekhi (Senior Industrial Promotion Officer, MSME) gave his warm wishes to the association.
Parvesh Jagga (Executive Member, OPA) was the project in charge for the Silver Jubilee Programme he had made the event a gala success. He told that the event was done to perfection with the guidance of Kamal Chopra and the support of fellow team members.
A souvenir was also released during the program; one of the major highlight of the souvenir is the OPA Time line, which included the important activities done by OPA. Manish Jain (Executive Member) was the in-charge of Souvenir.
The Celebrations were made wonderful by the performance of Rockstars Group (India's Got Talent - Fame) and the Splendid fireworks which were sponsored by   AMSG Ashokan, President, All India Federation of Master Printers.
TIMELINE OPA
1988    -Birth of OPA
 
1991    - In a major decision it was agreed that expenditure on the executive meetings and personal     nature expenditures shall be borne by the executive team themselves. (18 March)
 
1994    -Launched “Punjab Print” the Bimonthly official journal at Cochin (25 September)
- Hosted 144th Governing Council meeting of AIFMP (17-18 December, 1994)
 
1996    - Registered under Societies Act XXI of 1860 (Regn. No. 1694 of 1995-96) (27 March)
 
1997    -Foundation stone of office of OPA laid by Y P S Bhalla in the presence of  P Hanumantha Rao, President of AIFMP (21 December)
 
1998    - Instituted the “Print Luminary” awards for the first time in India to recognise the talent of unsung heroes of the Printing & Packaging Industry (28 August)
            - Instituted annual ‘Best of North’ awards for the excellence in printing (14 September)
- Inauguration of Office Building of OPA by D K Agarwal, President of AIFMP and Presentation of “Lifetime Achievement” award to Vijay Chopra; “Print Personality of the year” award - A.D. Chatterjee and   “Outstanding Achievement” award- Y. P. S. Bhalla. (20 October)
1999    - Celebrated 200 years of Offset Printing (28 April)
             - Organised  group visit to Pack Print Exhibition, Singapore (4 January)
 
2000    - Presented ‘Award of Honour’ to K N Malhotra (13 January)
-Celebrated 150 years of Punjabi Printing in India (30 January)
             -Organised “Print Art” exhibition (21-23 April)
- Presentation of “Lifetime Achievement” award to Viren Chabra; “Print Personality of the year” award to Pranav Parikh and  “Outstanding Achievement” award to K S Balaraman (22 April)
       
2001    - Presented “Award of Honour” to Ram Nanda and Vipul Kapoor (22 April)
 
2002    - Launch of “OPA Carnival cum Gutenberg Festival” to be celebrated every year at the time of Holi (28 March)
            - Organised “North Zone Printers Meet” (23 June)
- Presented “Award of Honour” to Ashwani  Arora, Satntokh Singh, Mariko Takagi, Japan & M/s Faber & Faber, Germany (27 October)
 
2003    - Launch of I/D cum Privilege Card (12 July)
            - Formation of North India Printers’ Association (27 August)
- Presentation of “Award of Honour” to Satish Gupta; “Master Craftsman Award” to Hira Lal Dhiman and Pritpal Singh (7 December)
- Mini Exhibition at South City (8 December)
 
2004 -Organised group visit to DRUPA (16-19 May)
 
2005 -Organised group visit to China Print (11-17 May)
 
2006 – Organised group visit to IPEX, UK and Dubai (3-9 April)
 
2007 - Organised group visit to Print China (10-16 April)
-          Organised group visit to Sino Folding, China (17-23 November)
-          Launched annual calendar of OPA to be published every  year (18 December)
 
2008 - Organised group visit to DRUPA (29 May to 11 June)
-          Organised group visit to APPP Expo, China ( 27 June to 4 July)
 
2009 - Organised group visit to China Print under I/C scheme (12-16 May)
-          Organised group visit to Print-09, USA Under I/C scheme (11-16 September)
 
2010 - Ludhiana approved as Printing & Packaging Cluster (8 January)
-          Organised group visit to Printing South China under I/C scheme (8-12 March)
-          Organised group visit to IPEX, UK and Turkey under I/C scheme (18-25 May)
-          Launched ‘Print Yatra’ for the better networking and persuading the printers of different cities to form associations (3 July)
-          Under ‘Print Leaders Meet’ invited Presidents of different printers’ associations of North India to discuss the problems and possible solutions (11 July)
-          Presented “Award of Honour” to A K Jha (21 August)
-          Organised ‘Print Art’ Exhibition (23-25 October)
-          Presentation of “Lifetime Achievement” award to P Hanumantha Rao (24 October)
 
2011 - Launched “Print Chetna” project to visit different schools for the awakening of students and younger generation to adopt printing as a career (28 November)
-          Organised group visit to Print China and Sino Corrugated (6-12 April)
-          Organised group visit to Pack Print Intl. Bangkok with the support of Thai Government (29 August to 2 September)
 
2012 -Organised group visit to DRUPA under I/C scheme (11-17 May)
-          Organised “Inter Print Expo” in collaboration with DPA at Delhi (14-16 September)
-          Hosted 7th RICOH – AIFMP “National Awards for Excellence in Printing” (15 September)
-          Presented “Award of Honour” to C K Mishra (27 September)
-  Presented ‘Print Rattan’ to B K Khutiala, ‘Print Bhushan’ to Dhanvi Shah and ‘Print Shree’ to Narinder Parmar (23 December)
2013 -Released “Fire and Accident Safety Guide” for the overall benefit of the trade and industry (13 February)
- Felicitated overseas dignitaries to honour the stalwarts of print world (23 February)
- Organised a churning meeting of members at “Barog Heights” (9-10 March)
- Trust building meeting under the Cluster Project held at Punjab Trade Centre, Ludhiana (4 April)
- Received a cheque of Rs.12,32,000 for Soft Intervention of Cluster (16 April)
- Launch of website of cluster by S S Dhillon, Director, MSME (19 April)
- Organised “Design Awareness Seminar” under Design Clinic Workshop Scheme of ministry of MSME (20 April)
- Organised group visit to China Print under I/C scheme (14-18 May)
- Celebrated India Day at China Print and hosted Indian flag (16 May)
- Organised group visit to Pack Print Intl. Bangkok under soft intervention and with the support of Government of Thailand (28-31 August)
- Organised group visit to Print 13, USA under I/C scheme (8-14 September)
- Kamal Chopra felicitated with “Global Leadership Print Award” for outstanding leadership in promoting the printing industry in India and worldwide (9 September)
- Invited to meet and interact with K H Muniyappa, union minister of state MSME (15 October)
- Felicitated AMSG Ashokan, President AIFMP and launched campaign “Proud to be a Printer”