'Lack of innovation main reason behind PCP's financial woes'

Lack of advanced technology is the main reason behind Printing Corporation of Pakistan's (PCP) financial difficulties with cumulative losses touching Rs 1.35 billion.
PCP Managing Director Mohammad Azar, who was recently transferred to Federal Ombudsman, said the corporation has been facing a loss since its inception in 1967. Innovation and inability to compete with other market players has remained a challenge for the corporation which has contributed to its overall losses as it failed to get major printing orders, he observed.
The rates charged for printing government publications are much higher than the market rates. "Market charges Rs 100 for printing an ordinary book, but PCP demands double the market price," another official of PCP said. PCP's major role is to print material for National Assembly, Senate, Election Commission of Pakistan, National Budget, summaries approved by President and Prime Minister, annual expenditure reports of ministries, gazette notifications and other confidential items.
The Ministry of Finance fixed the printing rates of government publications without taking into account the open market price mechanism. "Under the rules of business, Ministry of Finance had been given the authority of fixing prices which required up-dating with the passage of time, but the government never paid any heed to the management of PCP and the rate differential has remained a major cause of its uncompetitive price rate," an official of PCP said.
During the government of President Musharaf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz gave another blow to PCP when he allowed all the principal accounting officers of ministries to outsource printing of their material to private sector at cheaper rates. "The provision of issuance of No Objection Certificate (NOC) was withdrawn from PCP through a cabinet notification in 2001 which made it binding on government departments to acquire NOC before outsourcing their printing job to private sector," the official added.
President PCP workers union, Lahore, Pirzada Irfan said that the major source of the income of the corporation was printing of ballot papers for general elections for the representatives of the National and Provincial Assemblies. "Around 120 million ballot papers were printed for the 2008 general elections and the corporation earned huge revenue at that time," he said. It is no longer certain that the government would continue to give the job of printing ballot papers and/or confidential documents to PCP or outsource it.
The management of PCP submitted a revival proposal to Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, three years back. In the proposal it emphasised the need to sell 16 Kanals of PCP land in Lahore worth Rs 1 billion to pay Golden Hand Shake and Community Power (CP) Fund of the employees. The final decision was pending before the Cabinet Committee on restructuring and Economic Co-ordination Committee of the Cabinet.