Railways orders closure of last printing presses in digital push

Railways owned 14 printing presses, of which nine were ordered to be shut down earlier

In October 2017, Piyush Goyal, then minister of railways, had announced the Centre’s intent to shut down all the printing presses owned by the ministry and outsource its printing service to third-party vendors — a move which had sent tremors through the labour unions affiliated with the national transporter.

After several rounds of deliberations, the ministry had then decided to close nine of its 14 operational printing presses and retain the remaining five, which were modernised to meet the ever rising passenger demand.

However, despite four years of deferment and resistance from various stakeholders, the Railway Board has finally ordered