After fifteen years I go to back to Bhiwadi to the modern ink factory that began in a then remote place on the road to Jaipur in Rajasthan. Everything has changed. Now it takes only 90 minutes since the main highway is a modern toll road and the way to the factory is paved and surrounded by property developer’s flags and banners. There are new owners of what was always one of the most advanced ink plants on the subcontinent. Siegwerk has completed the paperwork and other formalities of its acquisition from Sicpa and the integration is ongoing with hands-on participation from Siegwerk’s top management and the Siegwerk India CEO, Vijay Gupta.

Siegwerk India is focussed on packaging inks both for paper and board and on flexible substrates and it also specialises in the 4-colour or multicolour sheetfed offset segment. All Seigwerk inks manufactured at any of its plants around the world are as environmentally friendly as any ink commercially manufactured in the world. All the Siegwerk flexible packaging inks are toluene-free and that goes for the inks made by Siegwerk India at Bhiwadi too.

We have known Vijay Gupta professionally for many years and when we meet him at Bhiwadi there is an enthusiasm that he communicates. He talks about the company growing at more than 20 per cent year on year. He speaks of the core values of Siegwerk – absolutely customer focused; customer driven; outward. He speaks of the friendly cricket match held on the Siegwerk cricket pitch. “We lost gracefully to Thomson Press,” he says. And almost in the same breath, “We have the finest ink laboratory in the subcontinent.” After we see the ink manufacturing plant, the health, safety, and environment precautions and the laboratory, we are impressed. This impression comes from the managers who show us around and who take the trouble to explain things scientifically.

This plant has grown since its inception from 2000 to 6000 tons and frankly it looks set to keep growing at an even faster rate. It has the only air-conditioned ink manufacturing facility in the subcontinent. Siegwerk is keen to bring global standards to India and these are already followed by the ink manufactured in the Bhiwadi plant: The sheetfed and packaging inks follow the EN71 global list of exclusions; they are 100 per cent toluene free, they are 100 per cent heavy metal free, and they comply with food packaging norms.

Gupta tells us, “We are very conscious of three things – odour, migration properties, solvent retention properties . . . We are the global leaders for liquid food packaging and in India, Siegwerk has worked hard to be the leading and in many cases the 100 per cent supplier to leading multinational and national high technology packaging companies.

“We have been recognised and accepted as a ‘Centre of Excellence’ by Siegwerk on the basis of both quality and process parameters. We can export to other Siegwerk facilities,” adds Gupta. "There is no flexibility in the global technology formulations. However the plant’s capability of adaptability of inks for local conditions in consultation with the Siegwerk scientists and formulators is a mark of our acceptance as a centre of excellence." Vijay Gupta smiles proudly when he sums up that the Siegwerk plant in Bhiwadi, Rajasthan is “A plant that loves to walk the talk.”