Print and Purloin

It8217;s India8217;s stamp paper factory, an establishment that stays alive by inflicting a 19th century fee collection mechanism on a 21s...

It8217;s India8217;s stamp paper factory, an establishment that stays alive by inflicting a 19th century fee collection mechanism on a 21st century economy. The India Security Press ISP in Nashik prints security stationery like postal stamps, stamp papers, passports, Kisan Vikas Patras and Indira Vikas Patras.

It used to print currency notes, too. But in 1962 one unit was hived off to form the Currency Note Press CNP, which now prints the Great Indian Rupee.

The ISP has about 4,000 employees and the average salary is around Rs 10,000 per month. These folk print stamp papers 8212; called non-judicial stamp papers to distinguish them from court fee stamps 8212; in various denominations from Re 1 to Rs 25,000. The ISP has the capacity to print 1,000 reams each containing 500 stamp papers daily and the printing varies as per requirement.

In the true traditions of bureaucracy, the ISP is obsessed with secrecy and security. Photography is prohibited here, so is seemingly harmless information. The general manager of the ISP, Prakash Narayan, declines to tell you how much it costs to print an individual stamp paper 8212; surely more than the Re 1 it may sell for 8212; because it is 8216;8216;classified information8217;8217;.

Maybe Narayan has reason to be cautious. His predecessor as GM, Gangaprakash Chaudhari, ended his tenure in April 2003 in rather controversial circumstances.

Chaudhuri had joined the ISP 27 years ago as assistant works manager. He stayed on to get the GM8217;s job. In this period, he was never transferred. When an attempt was made to post him Hyderabad, Chaudhari is said to have used the good offices of one Mr Telgi to intercede on his behalf.

In February 2003, Chaudhari and two other ISP officials were raided by the anti-corruption bureau. The raids revealed wealth grossly disproportionate to known sources of income.

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M.K. Kulthe, a former ISP supervisor who retired in 1992, was also raided at the time. He had floated a trading company in 1998, bought 62 tonnes of paper, coated at a factory in Gujarat and supplied to Telgi.

Just how porous the ISP is is clear from the fact that a discarded discarded printing machine was sold to Telgi, who also got access to the plates, security ink and paper.

Burglaries visit both the CNP and the ISP fairly often. Stamp papers worth Rs 32 lakh were stolen from the ISP in 1995; worth Rs 23 lakh in 2000; worth Rs 84 lakh in 2002.

So why does India persist with this obsession with stamp papers, so sought after a commodity that business families buy them in bulk and hoard them? Why not just do away with them?

What 8212; and put 3,000 government employees out of a job?

The stamp paper, clearly, is one very socialist thing.