While political parties chart their campaigns for the upcoming elections in five states of Goa, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Manipur, the staff at Mysore Paints and Varnish Limited are working in continuous shifts to make manufacture the indelible ink to be used to mark the fingers of voters.

Mysore Paints and Varnish Limited, popularly referred to as myLAC, is the only authorised company in the country to produce the ink which is used in every elections in the country.

The company is on its way to deliver the demand of 4.30 lakh bottles of ink (each bottle of 10 ml) for the elections in these five states in March.

The Election Commission of India had ordered the ink for the coming elections three months in advance.

Since the order was placed by the ECI, myLAC started manufacturing the inks with its 50 employees, as well as 100 more labourers hired on a contract basis,.

They are operating in two shifts daily including Sundays to meet the huge demand.

The company has already dispatched about 4,000 bottles for Goa and 52,000 bottles for Punjab for their elections dated on February 4.

7,300 bottles of ink has been sent to Manipur for its election on March 4 and 8.

On January 16, myLAC dispatched about 1,00,000 bottles for the Uttar Pradesh election which will take place in seven phases.

There has been demand of 3.30 lakh bottles for UP elections, to which the remaining 2 lakh bottles will be sent on January 23.

The ink manufacturer has already dispatched about 25,000 bottles of ink for Uttarakhand’s election that has been scheduled for February 15.

Speaking to Bangalore Mirror H A Venkatesh, chairman, Mysore Paints and Varnish Limited said, “We have kept our words by the supply of demands in time. And we will stick to our words by dispatching the remaining requirement for Uttar Pradesh elections,” he added.

THE BOTTLES WERE USED IN BANKS AFTER DEMONETISATION

The ink manufactured by the company was also used by banks to prevent multiple withdrawal of money after demonetisation of Rs 500 and 1000 denomination notes during the last two months in 2016 for the first time in the history of myLAC. The Reserve Bank of India had placed an order of about 2.96 lakh ink bottles to which the myLAC dispatched about 1.5 lakh bottles of ink due to insufficient time. The only manufacturer of indelible ink was supposed to go on the busy schedule due to immediate demand for the coming polls.

ABOUT MYLAC

The company was established in 1937 by Maharaja of Mysore Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV in the name of Mysore Lac and Paints Limited and was renamed as Mysore Paints and Varnish Limited later. The company which is owned by government of Karnataka has also been exporting the indelible ink countries like Thailand, Singapore, Nigeria, Malaysia, South Africa and Afghanistan.

One bottle

A 10 ml bottle costs about `142, and the ink in each bottle can be used on 750 voters.

(Source: Bangalore Mirror )