Government drops plan to print lottery tickets in private press

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Cabinet on Wednesday decided to drop the plan to print State lotteries in a private printing press.

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy told the media after the Cabinet meeting that the government had taken the decision as the public sector Kerala Books and Publications Society (KBPS) had come forward to improve its efficiency and print 40 lakh more tickets a week.

The government move to entrust the part of the printing job to the private press with equity participation of State Small Industries Development Corporation (SIDCO) had given rise to a controversy.

The Chief Minister said that the government had given clearance, in principle, to the plan to print tickets at the press with 26 per cent equity participation of SIDCO as the KBPS and Kerala State Centre for Advanced Printing and Training (C-apt) could print only 3.9 crore tickets in a month.  C-apt would also be allowed to print additional quantity of tickets when it is ready.

He noted that the Lotteries Department was planning to increase the number of tickets printed annually to 6250 crore a year.  There was also plan to introduce Stree Sakthi lotteries. This necessitated increase in number of tickets printed per day from 60 lakh to 90 lakh.  This could not have waited. Hence a committee was asked to examine whether the private press fulfilled security requirements. As such, no decision had been taken to award the contract for printing tickets to the press.