By Business India Editorial

Frontline workers have been among the most vulnerable and adversely affected by the Corona virus pandemic in India – especially doctors, the police force and health aid workers. Also, India’s workforce has been seriously affected by layoffs in both SMEs and large organisations across industries.

As an organisation, Control Print was cognisant of these issues and responded in the best possible way to the pandemic: not only did it assure its employees there would be no lay-offs, it also took upon itself to help frontline workers by donating medical-grade surgical masks and FFP2/N95 level masks.

Control Print, one of India’s largest coding and marking solutions providers, has over 30 years of operational experience in the industry and boasts over 320 field staff and two state-of-the-art factories. The company is a prime example of global quality Indian manufacturing capabilities in the technology industry. It is also listed on the BSE and the NSE, and is one of India’s top 1,000 companies by market capitalisation.

In June 2020, Control Print’s venture, The Mask Lab, launched the ‘Spread the Mask’ initiative – an effort to donate masks and spread awareness about safety measures during the pandemic. 

Control Print tied up with NGOs and local bodies to make masks available to hospitals and NGOs nationally – they included Tata Memorial Hospital, KEM Hospital and JJ Hospital, through Project Mumbai. It was also one of the first companies to donate masks to the Mumbai Police force. “Maharashtra was one of the worst-hit states in India,” says Shiva Kabra, MD, Control Print. “And the police had been working hard and staying on the streets to ensure that citizens complied with the rules of the lockdown. To learn that these men and women had been using mainly reusable cloth masks (which can pose a variety of threats) prompted us at The Mask Lab to reach out and see if we could donate our higher-grade, safety-certified masks to them. Within a week, we had donated 50,000 masks to the different police teams, including at Byculla, Thane and the police headquarters at Crawford Market.”

To ensure that the masks reached those who did not have easy access to them, Control Print also tied up with local NGOs and public bodies in the remotest parts of the country, including villages in even Telangana, Manipur and J&K. Control Print also ran awareness initiatives that centred around women championing mask-wearing – one such campaign in Chittorgarh, Rajasthan, garnered lots of interest and even featured on local and national news channels, including Doordarshan.