According to managing director T Ganguli, the company has engaged Barco Systems of Belgium to upgrade its security designing system. "They are helping us install a computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided management (CAM) for the security printing division," Ganguli said.

The Belgian company, whose Asia Pacific headquarters is in Singapore, has its Indian outlet in Bangalore. With the installation of CAD and CAM, Saraswaty Press will start printing cheques, drafts, and ballot papers.

Ganguli appeared confident that the company would bag orders from banks. At present, the job is done mostly by private parties and the Nasik-based Centre-owned India Security Press.

"As banks are using private printers, there has been a rise infraudulent activities. A leading nationalised bank is the worst affected. These banks are looking for a government organisation for printing their cheques and drafts and so we are confident of bagging the orders," he added.

Saraswaty Press was established in 1923 at Barishal, now in Bangladesh, by four freedom fighters - Manoranjan Gupta, Arun Chandra Guha, Sailendranath Guha Roy and Mahendranath Dutta. In 1925, it was shifted to Calcutta.

From 1970 to 1978, the press went through a bad phase and was even closed for a year. However, in response to the public outcry against the closure of the unit, the state government took over the management in January 1980 and subsequently nationalised it in January 1989.

The company is modernising its postal stationery division after investing around Rs 4 crore. Ganguli said Union minister of state for telecom Kabindra Purakayastha, along with the top officials of the Indian postal department, visited the company recently.

"The minister has assured that the postaldepartment will place orders. This will reduce the shortage of postcards and inland letters in this part of the country," Ganguli said.

Prior to 1996, the Centre used to place the postal stationery orders with two private parties--the Kanpur-based Calcutta Security Printers and the Chennai-based Madras Security Printers.

"As far as I know, orders to the private parties have been discontinued and, at present, the Nasik unit caters to the needs of the entire nation. So every other day, we face a shortage of postal stationery. To get rid of this crisis and meet the demands of the eastern region, the government may place some orders on us," Ganguli said.

In 1998-99, Saraswaty Press registered a turnover of Rs 21 crore, up from Rs 19.44 crore the previous year. Gross profit in 1997-98 was Rs 3.87 crore. In 1996-97, turnover was Rs 14.85 crore and gross profit Rs 3.6 crore.

Ganguli said that the audit process was on and the company expects to register a gross profit of around Rs 1.75 crore. Like in 1997-98,the company will pay a dividend of 8 per cent. In the previous two fiscals, it paid 5 per cent.

Of the 24 state government undertakings, only five are performing reasonably well and have been paying dividend regularly. Apart from Saraswaty Press, the other dividend-paying units are Eastern Distilleries, Mackintosh Burn, Electro Medical & Allied Chemicals Ltd and Warehousing Corporation.

In the last fiscal, the company had a market borrowing of Rs 2.5 crore after CARE, the credit-rating wing of IDBI, awarded A+ rating to its debt instruments. Ganguli said this year its debt instruments will be rated by Crisil.