Gurudwara committee goes modern to print sacred text

New Delhi: The management committee of Sikh Gurdwaras in Delhi will import an ultra modern fully computerised offset machine from Germany to print Sikh’s sacred text, Guru Granth Sahib.

The eco-friendly, CO2 neutral, four colour printing machine costing around Rs 8 crore will be set up at the Granth Sahib building that is coming up in Gurdwara Rakabaganj, president of Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) Manjit Singh said.

The new machine is likely to reach in India by April 2019 and the printing is likely to start in May 2019, he said.

The Siromani Gurdwara Parbhandak Committtee in Amritsar and the DSGMC in Delhi only have exclusive and legal rights for publication of the authentic version of the Guru Granth Sahib. The new printing press will have optimum capacity of printing 10,000 pages per day which will meet the growing demand of holy book worldwide mainly among overseas Sikh devotees, Singh said.

The DSGMC is also planning to organise tours for people and school children at the printing facility. In these tours, visitors will be educated about the process of printing the sacred text, Singh said.

"It will be a new religious tourist destination in the national capital which will attract both foreign as well as domestic tourists," he said. The 1,430-page Guru Granth Sahib is composed of holy verses of Sikh gurus and 30 other saints like Kabir, Ravidas, Namdev among others.