Agra’s Darpan Printers & Lamination is a leading commercial and monocarton printer and converter in the city. Operating from a 12,000-square-foot space in the Sikandra Industrial area, Darpan Printers was started as a DTP house in 1992 by KR Dhanwani, adding its first offset press four years later.
The family-owned operation is now run by Dhanwani’s son, Aaryan Dhanwani and his wife Richal A Manchhanda. The company diversified into monocartons in 2019. Darpan Printers operates four multicolor Komori presses, with a combined daily print capacity of two lakh sheets. The Komori GL37, installed in August 2025, sits alongside the three earlier Komori Enthrones.
While monocartons comprise 60% of the production at Darpan, commercial and book printing operations make up a big chunk of the printing operations. Dhanwani says packaging is the most resilient industry segment today. Having diversified to monocartons, just before Covid, it boomed during the pandemic.
Dhanwani says it was a wise decision to branch into the packaging vertical just a few months before the onset of the worldwide crisis, as it helped keep the company afloat. “We had all the necessary permissions during the pandemic, which helped us immensely. The shelf appeal of packaging makes a huge impact and is considered to have an impact of 20-30% on the final purchase decision of customers.” Monocartons are mainly produced for pharma clients, along with work for the FMCG, cosmetics, and electronics segments.
Being an early adopter of new Komori presses helped the company gain market dominance in the city and the Western UP region. Dhanwani says using brand-new equipment establishes a certain trust and reputation in customers’ minds, as it highly enhances the quality of the print products. According to him, the major challenges today are trained manpower and the lack of consistency in the price of print consumables due to the ongoing Gulf war. “Raw material prices are fluctuating every day; there is no consistency in the prices of major raw materials such as paper and inks.”
Dhanwani said he has developed a profound professional relationship with the Komori India team over the last decade. The brand new Komori Enthrone 429 that the printer acquired in 2016 was the first machine of its kind in Agra or the whole of western UP, he said, adding it was a complete game changer and helped the company establish its reputation as a dominant player in the market with clients from near and far approaching for high-end printing work.
Darpan buys paper from JK Paper, Century, Emami, and TNPL, including art paper, gumming sheets, SBS boards, and chromo paper. Dhanwani says he is very satisfied with the high quality of the Toyo High Unique Plus offset inks that he uses. “Our clients are ready to pay for quality raw materials,” he adds. On the company’s expansion plans, Dhanwani plans to acquire an HPM 115 cutting machine and a Komori 640 multicolor offset press over the course of the next two to two-and-half years.
