Envelopes outsourced

Nashik press union cries foul.

NASHIK: The 80-year-old India Security Press (ISP) in Nashik has for the first time outsourced the production of envelopes.

This year the ISP gave an order for 40 lakh Raksha Bandhan envelopes to a multinational company, Deupont Tyeveke, thereby upsetting its union. The ISP employees' union maintains that the Nashik plant had the machinery as well as the capacity to manufacture these envelopes.

"The management should have asked us if we could handle the job or not," says Ashok Gaidhani, vice-president of the union.

The union claims the multinational company charged Rs5 per envelope whereas it could have been produced in Nashik for Rs1.50.

The ISP works manager, SK Ghosh, washed his hands of the affair.

"The ISP has nothing to do with this decision as it came to us from the Department of Posts, New Delhi," he said. As for the allegations made by the union, Ghosh said, "We will have to examine if the envelopes could have been made here. There are matters of paper, purchasing, etc."

"The only difference between the Raksha Bandhan envelopes produced here last year and these foreign ones is a synthetic coating. This is not difficult and we could have done it here," says Ravindra Jagtap, secretary of the union.