Family business witnessing growth: Jehova Joute, Inkpresson, Halflong, Assam

01 October 2020: My printing business is a start-up, established about a one-and-half year ago. After graduation, I did not take up any job; in any case, employment is a problem in remote places like ours where there is no industry to generate big employment. My dad worked in the forest department and now he is retired. So, I immediately decided to start printing, especially sublimation and screen printing which requires very low investment. I learnt the techniques by watching YouTube tutorials and I am still learning.

Ours is a work from home printing unit having sublimation and screen printing facilities (manual). We have an Epson sublimation printer, heat press and the graphic designing work is outsourced. We are a family business comprising, my dad, mom, two brothers, uncle and aunty. We all work together to fulfil customers print orders. We are looking for a small space to shift our printing unit from home. With sublimation set up, we offer customized t-shirts printing, gift items, key chains, mugs, etc. Screen printing is used to print wedding cards, stationery and any other commercial printing jobs. We got an order to print Christian Enfield Rider (CER) exclusive tees printing. We were the partner for The ‘Big Bang’ festival for which we had printed special occasion tees.

We source all our raw materials from Guwahati, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai over the phone itself. During corona, the lockdown was closed till May end and since June we have started our work. Just before lockdown, a local association had ordered around 60 t-shirts for printing, but due to lockdown, the order cancelled and this was the only loss due to corona. Since we are in remote places, we keep at least one month’s stock of regularly required raw materials hence there was no problem.

We are in Haflong, a town Dima Hasao district in Assam. Haflong is the only hill station in Assam, a tourist paradise, also named the Switzerland of the north-east. In 2006, the Indian government named Dima Hasao one of the country’s 250 most backward districts. Hence it is currently receiving funds from the Backward Regions Grant Fund Programme. According to the 2011 census, Dima Hasao has a population of 214,102.