Narinder Chhatwal hailed from a
family of traders in Lyallpur, a city which is now in Pakistan after the
partition of India in 1947. Lyallpur was
named after the founder of the city the then Lieutenant-Governor of the
Punjab, Sir James Lyall, for his role in establishing the canal
colonisation project. In 1977 the Government of Pakistan changed the
name of the city from Lyallpur to Faisalabad ('City of Faisal') in
honour of King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, who made several financial
contributions to Pakistan. Faisalabad is the third-most-populous city in
Pakistan after Karachi and Lahore, respectively. It was in
the turbulent times of 1947 during the division of India into India and
Pakistan, that the Chhatwals migrated to New Delhi. After completing his
schooling, Narinder Chhatwal took up a job in the iconic Kwality Restaurant in coveted
location, New Delhi’s Connaught Place, a venture set up in 1940 by P L Lamba
and his brother-in-law I K Ghei who grew it as a multilocation restaurant chain.
Narinder worked there until 1961. There was a strong urge to have his own
business, so he set up a unit to produce ice cream cups but as situation
warranted then, he left this venture and rejoined Kwality Restaurant yet again
in 1964. Despite the stable job, the entrepreneur in him was restless and the
urge to set up his own production unit re-surfaced and he finally quit the job
permanently to start a printing unit nostalgically named Kwality Carton
Manufacturing Company, in a single room rented at Kirti Nagar, New Delhi in 1966-67
using the manually fed treadle letterpress printing machine. He manufactured
Ice cream cups, lids, cartons for Ice cream bricks and in fact a host of printed
packaging items. In 1971 he could get an allotment for an industrial plot from
government at Naraina Industrial Area and he moved the unit to this location
where from, they operate to this date.
A little over a year after moving into their Naraina
factory they bought their first offset printing press, a 712 single colour Dominant,
a year later they bought another similar press and followed it up with a 714
Dominant. Falling short of space, the adjoining building was available, so they
bought it as they were growing. In 1982-83, expanding further they acquired a two
colour Planeta. Once into offset printing, Kwality was in expansion mode, they
were adding equipment every alternate year. At this time, they renamed the
company as Kwality Offset Printers. In 1986 Narinder Chhatwal’s son Rajeev an 18-year-old
had joined business. Rajeev did his initial Schooling at Springdales School
Delhi followed with graduation from Delhi University. The post partition
Punjabi families who left all that they had, back in what had become Pakistan
were hard working and were quick to start from scratch to regain their stature
by sheer hard work. The second generation were all following their father’s footsteps
and would be helping their parents in the work, spending time after school or
college on the shopfloors of their startup units. For them, the shop floors
became the training ground, and they learnt the nuances of business hands on.
Rajeev was no different, with a father
like Narinder mentoring him and passing on the experience to his son who was a
quick learner, he settled down in the business quickly. He however did go for a
short training program at Heidelberg Germany. With his joining in, the business
accelerated and soon the space in their Naraina factory was again falling
short. In 1988, they bought out yet another next-door unit to make room for more
production space so now the factory is operating from three adjacent plots. The
same year they bought their first four colour offset press a secondhand Roland.
Expansion became a routine process. They believed and were convinced that as
far as possible it is better to operate from a unified single location in one
city. This way the management which was Narinder Chhatwal, and his son Rajeev
Chhatwal were not split and would remain a support to each other.
Until 1995 Kwality offset was producing Cartons, some
commercial printed items and wet glue labels. In 1995-96 they decided to become
a hundred percent label manufacturing unit which was only wet glue labels. The
story of their entry into wet glue labels is interesting. In the early 1990s
when the number of breweries started to grow and bottling speeds were on the rise.
To label bottles at 250 bottles per minute, the labels needed to be perfectly
die punched and stacked to run on highspeed lines. The normal flatbed dies
would not work well. Kwality, because of their experience in ice cream cups and
lids production were well versed in ram die punching and their workers were
well trained in the process. Their manufactured labels ran extremely well on
the high-speed labelling machines at breweries and distilleries and soon the
word spread of their capabilities. This helped them get the orders from many
other breweries and liquor producing companies. It was just a matter of time
that they became the largest suppliers of wet glue labels in north India, though
they were supplying pan national. It is interesting to note that normally
people print and then get into label finishing equipment, here because of their
knowledge of finishing the ice cream cup lids by hydraulic ram punching got
them into high end big volume label printing. Their first customer for beer
labelling was a government owned Haryana breweries at Sonepat making a popular
brand of beer those days “Rosy Pelican.” Their success in making the perfectly
die-punched wet glue labels also got them their first break in corporate world
with orders from the multinational brand owner Nestle.
It was in the year 2000 when self-adhesive labels were gaining
in popularity, the Chhatwals invested in a Mark Andy 2200 narrow web label press and in the following year,
they also increased their investment in sheetfed offset by installing a six
colour Heidelberg press. In 2002 they installed another sheetfed offset a five
colour Roland with UV and online coater. Hereon, expansion became an ongoing
process, they added three Mark Andy presses, a Gallus and a Xeikon in 2018 to
make their entry into digitally printed labels with an ABG Digicon series 3
finishing and embellishing machine, which also has hot foil stamping ,
embossing and screen-printing capabilities. These investments enabled them to
add multiple security features on labels. Increasing their footprint in flexo
they also set up inhouse platemaking with Kodak Flexcel. Rajeev’s father
Narinder Chhatwal passed away in 2008 until when, he was still attending business,
though the reins had been passed on to his son Rajeev.
Rajeev’s other siblings include a younger brother who is
into real estate and a sister who is a homemaker. His wife Shalini is also a home
maker. His son Krish completed his business management from Sydney and joined
business at Kwality offset four years ago. Two of those initial years were
passed in facing the pandemic and last year in 2021 he got married. Krish’s
wife Sanya, an expert in baking, after completing a course from APCA Malaysia,
is running her own business, a bakery named Delhi’ce in Gurgaon making
specialty cakes. Rajeev’s daughter recently completed her study in architecture
and is now pursuing her career as an architect.
Having put in place a full-fledged team to manage all
production, Rajeev, and son Krish personally look after sales and marketing.
While Krish looks after all new customers, Rajeev manages and caters to, and successfully
retains all old customers. The present spread of business is with three flexo
presses, one digital label press Xeikon, Abg digicon, one Roland and one
Heidelberg sheet offset press in a shopfloor admeasuring approximately 60,000
square feet. Total workforce is 130 persons all in one location at Naraina
Industrial Area New Delhi. With no more space left for expansion at present
location, they have bought a 2200 square yard plot at Manesar south of New
Delhi for another factory to fuel their further expansion. When asked about
future plans, Rajeev expresses that they are not really concerned about just
volumes, they are more oriented to implement better and innovative technology
and be profitable to grow the bottom line instead of focusing on bigger
turnovers. Kwality has been growing at about 10 percent per annum and they are
committed to maintain the growth rate. Conscious about the environment they
have tied up with approved and certified waste management agencies as also
cooperating with Avery Dennison on their waste management endeavours. They even
try and source most of their paper materials from FSC certified vendors. Despite
the aftereffects of pandemic, the father-son team are committed and firm to
keep the expansion and investment in new technologies an ongoing process. Their
resolve years ago to give-up cartons and other commercial printing to stay with
100% manufacturing of labels is unique in today’s situation. These days offset
printers do integrate forward to produce labels and vice-versa label printers,
in an effort to grow turnovers, expand into print packaging. They wish to
remain specialty label printers, investing into innovation.
Written by Harveer Sahni,
Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi March 2022
PS: Printing Magazine may publish this article giving credit to author Harveer Sahni and Blog https://harveersahni.blogspot.com
