Introduction
The Sikkim Government Press functioning under Printing & Stationery Department was established by Maharaja Sidkeong Tulku in the year 1913 and today it is 108 years old. It started as a Tibetan Press with primary objective of printing Tibetan Books with one Compositor and two Assistant Compositors. Later somewhere in 1930’s facilities for carrying out English and Nepali Printing were added. Excepting one Hand Press Machine, there were no other Printing Machine. One Chandler Machine, One Tradel Machine and One Hand Cutting Machine of U.S. make were transferred to the Sikkim Government Press from the Residency of the then Political Officer of Sikkim in 1940s. One Lee Letterpress Machine 22” x 36”, one Original Albert Automatic Letterpress Machine 18” x 23”, one Automade Perfecta Cutting Machine (Germany) and one Board Cutting Machine (Indian make) were added in the late 50s. From 1963 to 1973, Original Heidelberg Cylinder (Germany make), Original Heidelberg Letterpress Machine, Monotype Super Caster & Composing Machine with Script-Matric of both English and Devnagri were added. In 1984, one HMT Letterpress Antena Machine and a blockmaking with a horizontal Camera were added to the fleet of the machines in order to facilitate photo printing alongwith the matter. A few machines were also added in the year 1988 to strength a part of the Letterpress. The modernization of the Government Press was taken up in the year 1990-91 creating history of first Offest Printing with Desktop Publishing System of 300 DPI in the State of Sikkim by the Government. 33 different posts were created to facilitate job opportunity. Slowly old technology i.e Letterpress switched over to Offset Printing within a span of 5-6 years. Thereafter process of upgradation of machineries & equipments is being done as per the requirement and the availability of funds.