Mysore Paints to manufacture special paint

Mysore Paints & Varnish Ltd., a state government company. has taken up the trial production of the special variety 2K polyutherene paint used for Volvo buses.

Now that the KSRTC has pressed into service a good number of Volvo buses on certain routes, it may switch over to this special variety of paint, instead of the enamel paint which the transport corporation uses for painting its buses.

"We took up trial production of the paint about four months ago. The follow-up will be take up very shortly," Mysore Paints managing director Hemanth Kumar told Business Standard.

Presently, KSRTC spends around Rs 1.5 crore on enamel painting. Its expenditure may increase to between Rs 2.5 crore and Rs 3 crore when it switches over to the polyutherene paint, he said.

To meet the requirements for the ensuing elections in four states and one union territory, the Mysore-based company has received orders for the supply of indelible ink from the Election Commission.

Hence, it has already forwarded 3,000 bottles of indelible ink to Pondicherry, 50,000 bottles to Assam and 46,000 bottles to Kerala. The requirement of 98,000 bottles for Tamil Nadu and 1.4 lakh bottles for West Bengal will be sent in a week, said Hemant Kumar.

The firm is in the final stages of manufacturing the ink, Hemanth Kumar added.

With the change in the marking system proposed by the Election Commission, the bottles will contain double the quantity of indelible ink.

Earlier, 5 ml bottles were supplied. Instead, the 15 ml bottles now will contain 10 ml of the indelible ink.

Two bottles will be made available to each polling booth which can meet markings for 1,400 voters.

The cost per bottle of ink will be Rs 40 and hence the company, which has a monopoly in manufacture of the indelible ink, can expect a higher turnover, he added.

Instead of putting a dot on the finger as was being done in the elections so far, marking will be from the first cut of the skin to the top nail like a small line, as per the new guidelines issued by the Election Commission.