Provin Technos is the distributor for MHI – PPM heatset web offset presses, RMGT’s sheet-fed offset presses, Miyakoshi’s narrow web presses, the Lithec inline color control system, Spande for narrow web flexo and inkjet presses, Smyth for sewing machines, and UV Energy smart UV Systems in India and Nepal. The company recently completed a dozen years on 25 June 2024 under the leadership of directors Vinay Kaushal and Pradeep Nandagopal.
Indian Printer & Publisher recently visited Provin’s office in Delhi’s Okhla Industrial Area to discuss the orders for five 8-color perfectors, out of which two have already been installed at Multivista in Chennai in 2018 and 2022, and one each at Thomson Press in Delhi-NCR in 2021, and very recently at Agarwal Print Media in Meerut in 2024. The third RMGT 920PF-8 8-color perfector at Multivista will come in March 2025, according to Kaushal.
While Thomson Press and Multivista are major book exporters, Agarwal Print Media produces textbooks for the domestic market. “RMGT offset presses remain optimum solutions for book printers. We offer the best paper size and productivity concept for the customer. We have more than 175 4-color sheetfed presses running in 25 x 36 inches size, which itself speaks of the utility of the RMGT presses in the book publishing segment,” notes Kaushal.
RMGT has installed the highest number of 8-color perfectors installed in India in recent years. Kaushal attributes this to its presses cost-effective solutions to book printers, according to Kaushal. “We are giving the best possible configuration which serves the purpose of the book publishing industry, including premium products such as coffee table books. Thomson’s machine has a very high-end configuration. It is the topmost configuration installed in India for any press with LED UV, inline color control registration, and inspection systems. Thomson Press is printing very short-run jobs with high ink coverage on the press. The makeready time for an 8-color perfector is around eight minutes. All our machines are equipped with simultaneous or fully automatic plate changing which makes plate change very fast.”
The company offers high-quality products with competitive prices, he says, adding the craze for the webfed inkjet digital presses is waning off gradually. While the webfed inkjet technology gives the printers the option of doing small lots, there are several pros and cons that need to be kept in mind while making a purchase. Moreover, he notes that inkjet technology is here to stay and it would be helpful to printers in the future.
On Multivista ordering its third 8-color perfector from RMGT, he said, “The cost economics, reliability and productivity of the machine as well as the after-sales service provided by Provin are the major factors behind this. Initially, Multivista was a Heidelberg customer where everything in their plant was from Heidelberg but one by one they are replacing all their machines with RMGT 8-color perfectors.”
One new 4-color RMGT sheetfed offset press was recently installed at NavPrabhat in Noida while another one has been shipped and will arrive by December-end or the first week of January, Kaushal said, another 4-color press would be installed at a big book printer in Mumbai.
The boom in the Indian book printing market has come at a time when the prices are also booming, Kaushal said, adding there is an almost 40% increase in machine prices. “If we were at the price level that we were a year and a half ago, India would have been flooded with brand new machines – that is the kind of demand we are witnessing right now,” he said, almost every used RMGT machine available in the world has come to India in the book printing segment.
