Only 7% of printing presses in Mysuru have bank loans

Rest have borrowed from money lenders, loan sharks

Only seven per cent of the printing presses operating in Mysuru have secured bank loans, while the rest have borrowed from private financiers and are paying usurious rates of interest.

This fact has been brought out by members of the Mysuru Printers’ Cluster. In a representation to district in-charge minister V Sreenivasa Prasad, the cluster office-bearers said, banks had given loans to only 7 per cent of the printing presses in the city. The rest had borrowed from private financiers and from chit funds at usurious rates of interest. As a result, a major share of their earnings was going towards the interest and installment payments, leaving very little for their livelihood.

In order to relieve them from this burden, the office-bearers led by president T D Jayachandra Urs urged the minister to take steps to provide loans to them at a rate of four per cent from the Karnataka State Financial Corporation (KSFC) and banks.

They also urged Prasad to see that power was supplied to all the presses, including to the pre-print, post-print and digital presses, under the LT-5 category industry power rates.

It also requested allotment of five acres in the KIADB Industrial Area, instead of the far-off Koorgalli Industrial Estate. It recalled that the previous deputy commissioner Harsh Gupta had allotted government land for the cluster, a scheme of both the central and state government.

Under the scheme, while one acre will be for general service centre, the remaining four acres in the KIADB's developed land on the Hunsur Road will have 30 industrial sheds of 4,000-10,000 square feet. The sheds will be allotted to cluster members according to the guidelines of 2014-19 Industrial Policy of the state government and the KIADB land allotment rules.

Of the eight clusters sanctioned to the Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council, TIFAC, for establishing in the country, the cluster for printing presses in Mysuru is the only cluster in its category. M S Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences, Bengaluru, is the nodal agency for the TIFAC-assisted cluster.

The Mysore District Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Association proposes to organise awareness seminars on ‘Printing Technology Gap Analysis & Hand-holding Facilities for Upgrade’ for printing presses under the cluster jurisdiction, its office-bearers said, adding, the Rs 15 crore cluster, for the development of which the state government had allocated Rs 10 crore and sent the project to the Centre for approval, and would benefit all categories of printing presses.