Noida’s Prabhuram Paper launched in 2004 as a newsprint trading company by Mohit Agarwal, amd sold paper for Coimbatore’s Servall Group, Surat’s Rama Newsprint and Papers, Amritsar’s Khanna Paper Mills, and Meerut’s Sangal Papers. It serviced local dailies such as Amar Ujala, Dainik Jagran, Punya Nagari, and Rashtriya Sahara in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, and Maharashtra.
In 2012, while visiting Mahindra Publication, a Noida-based publisher of educational reference books for competitive exams, Agarwal hit on the idea of becoming a printer. Although he began with a refurbished Harris 4-color 546 mm cut-off web offset press, being completely new to print operations, he struggled. From paper trading to consuming paper with a used press, he struggled to acquire new customers.
In 2014, he replaced the older press with a Ronald 546mm cut-off 2-high tower web offset and added an NBG 578mm cut-off web press with a 4-high tower in 2018. Another Ronald 4-high tower web offset with a 578mm cut-off was added in 2023.
The continuous expansion of the print business, including the outsourcing of sheetfed printing, led to the addition of sheetfed commercial printing in-house, with the installation of a brand new Komori Lithrone G37 4-color on 25 March 2025. Komori has several advantages, in his estimation – “Its subsidiary Komori India with a head office in Faridabad in the Delhi-NCR and has a team of several service engineers covering Delhi and North India.
“The machine’s compact footprint and its 25 x 37-inch print size are better than its nearest competitors. The machine’s make, print quality, and electronics are robust and simplified, and offer enhanced production with minimum wastage. Additionally, Komori has a pan-India presence. The resale value of the machine is high. Komori India also has a proper back-up for spare parts.”
The Komori G37 is helping the company complete orders on time, Agarwal said. With the addition of the sheetfed offset press, Prabhuram Paper has moved the complete printing operations in-house and can now take up orders for up to 4 to 5 lakh books, he added.
Though Prabhuram Paper outsources its prepress, it has a grand setup as far as postpress is concerned, with two Electromac single-clamp and a 6-clamp perfect binder, two 3-knife trimmers from Perfecta SDY1 and Five Star from Punjab. Four stitching machines from Chawri Bazaar’s Sindhu were acquired a decade ago. Agarwal has amped up his postpress with an HPM 115 acquired in 2025.
Currently operating out of a 15,000 square foot space across five floors, the commercial printer mostly prints books and magazines for his clients. The newsprint trade continues, and Agarwal works with Vamshadhara Paper Mills in Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh, and new media customers including the Hari Bhoomi Group and Navbharat Bhopal.
Educational reference books
Though he started by printing newspapers and magazines, the focus has shifted to educational reference books. “During my initial printing days, I was printing newspapers. However, I didn’t find it to be a lucrative business. We were printing magazines too, but the orders drastically declined after the Covid-19 pandemic. Though the newsprint trade meant offering the best rate and satisfying consumers and mills, the Covid crisis affected the market to a large extent, with a steep decline in orders from 2,000 tons to 200 tons in a matter of a few months. With a sharp decline in pagination and circulation, many clients found new vendors while others cut down production,” he said.
Today, Prabhuram Paper prints the Bright Group of Publications’ Competition Success Review, Junior Science Refresher and General Knowledge Refresher, along with the Urdu magazines Huma and Pakeeza Anchal, and the Hindi monthly Mahakta Anchal, which have been customers since he began the print business in 2012.
Agarwal prints educational reference books for publishers’ competitive exams. These include Physics Wallah, Study IQ Education, Metis Eduventures, and Lab Books, along with job work for walk-in customers and printer associates, as well as authored books for RS Publication and AKJ Publication.
Next-gen strengthens operations
Agarwal’s older son Apoorv joined the business in December 2022, while the younger Raghav will complete his first year in the business in May. “While Apoorv strengthened our postpress operations, Raghav helped in selecting the latest Komori press,” he said.
With the book printing industry being seasonal and established printers expanding capacity every now and then, relatively new businesses have to face challenges, he said, adding that the complete 4-color setup of web and sheetfed offset presses gives him an edge in the market.
Agarwal plans to add prepress operations in-house by the end of 2026. Future plans include government empanelment in state boards and educational entities such as NCERT and NIOS for picking up direct tenders for printing textbooks.
“We are always up for the biggest challenge in the printing industry – delivering orders on time,” he concluded.
