Mysuru/Mysore: Karnataka Offset Printers’ Association (KOPA), which rode on the visionary and mission-mode efforts of its successive office-bearers and made history as the first and the only printers’ association in the country to have its own building, in Bengaluru, has turned 25.

The journey of KOPA’s 25 years coincided with the end of letterpress printing, making way to offset printing in the country. The new technology brought in challenges, which provided the background and the context for the birth of KOPA as a forum to address such challenges.

Apart from addressing many challenges faced by the printing industry, KOPA was among the first to respond in times of distress and natural calamities. KOPA has distributed Rs. 40 lakh worth relief materials in flood-hit areas of North Karnataka and Kodagu besides providing scholarships to deserving students and also distributing note books at subsidised price, conducting technical seminars and open houses for its members.

Free training

The training centre, KOPA TOPTEC was the brainchild of former KOPA President A. Balachandra which was established to address the shortage of skilled manpower in the offset printing industry. 

The training centre offers four-month intuitive course covering fundamentals of print process and graphic designing, CorelDraw, in-depth knowledge in use and applications of tools, tips, creating logos, monograms, using and applying colours, working with shapes and planning page layouts among others. 

The Founding team of KOPA were late Bhadragiri Sarvothama Pai (President), K.K. Vaidyanathan (Vice-President) and Basavaraj C. Jigalur (General Secretary).