On 7 March 2026, India Security Press (ISP), Nashik, marked its centenary with a series of commemorative events, including the inauguration of the Shatabdi Dwar (Centenary Gate) and Shatabdi Udyaan (Centenary Garden), as well as the release of a commemorative postage stamp. While the occasion marked 100 years of history, the stamp signalled more than a mere milestone; it underscored a technological pivot within one of Asia’s key security printing institutions.
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Left to right: Dr D K Rath – Chief General Manager, Currency Note Press; Suchita Anant Joshi – Department of Posts; Aparna Bhatia – Adviser, Department of Economic Affairs; Anuradha Thakur – Secre-tary, Department of Economic Affairs; Vijay Ranjan Singh – Chairman and Managing Director, Security Printing and Minting Corp of India; Rajesh Bansal – Chief General Manager, India Security Press.
Since it was established in 1925, ISP has produced India’s most sensitive sovereign documents. It now operates as a unit of the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Ltd (SPMCIL), a government-owned enterprise under the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance. This structure, introduced in 2006 through corporatisation, provided ISP with a modern foundation for investment, expansion, and technology adoption.
ISP is part of a wider SPMCIL network that includes Currency Note Press (Nashik), Bank Note Press (Dewas), an ink factory in Dewas, Security Printing Press (Hyderabad), Security Paper Mill (Narmadapuram), and four mints across Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Noida.
Over the decades, ISP has become a strategic pillar of national infrastructure, managing over 300 security products. It is the sole printer of passports and travel documents for the government of India. In FY 2024-25, ISP produced 15.63 million passport booklets, an 11.4% increase over the previous year, demonstrating its expanding role.
In addition to identity documents, ISP produces non-judicial stamp papers (NJSPs) for legal contracts and property transfers, as well as postage stamps, fiscal instruments, and tax stamps. In 2024-25, ISP produced 193.13 million NJSPs.
ISP’s foundational role supports trust in daily governance. Its progress is driven by SPMCIL’s Centre for Business Strategy and Innovation (CBSI), it’s central innovation and R&D hub, which advances materials science and anticounterfeiting technologies to address global security challenges.
The centenary event combined ceremony with substance. Economic Affairs Secretary Anuradha Thakur and SPMCIL Chairman Vijay Ranjan Singh formally inaugurated new infrastructure supporting electronic ePassport production, marking a significant step in India’s transition to globally interoperable and highly secure travel documents, aligned with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards.
This transition is underpinned by a significant expansion of manufacturing capability. In FY 2024-25, ISP Nashik commissioned a fully integrated passport manufacturing line, covering all steps from booklet production to chip embedding and enabling chip-enabled personalisation.
Building on this foundation, ISP hosted an industrial conclave in early 2026 at its R&D centre to develop a roadmap for India’s ePassport programme in line with ICAO 9303.
This was followed by an Expression of Interest (EOI) to establish a polycarbonate (PC) sheet manufacturing facility for passport data pages through a joint venture or technology transfer with global manufacturers. The EOI targets 20 million data pages annually and meets requirements for RFID/ NFC integration and high-security document standards.
The EOI scope extends beyond material production to include the development of advanced polycarbonate substrates with embedded optical and security features. These may include moving/3D or holographic images incorporated into the PC overlay and tailored for Indian ePassports.
The EOI for PC sheet manufacturing was followed by an equally ambitious EOI, from established machine manufacturers, for setting up a state-of-the-art ID3 travel document/data card manufacturing facility at ISP’s Nashik premises.
These initiatives will move ISP upstream in the value chain, evolving from secure printing to integrated material engineering and feature embedding. The strategy follows global best practices by integrating security into the document’s structure rather than applying it to the surface.
As India advances its digital transformation, ISP Nashik is more than a legacy institution. It is a high-tech manufacturing hub essential to the next phase of global secure identity and trust infrastructure.
This makes ISP not only an historic institution within SPMCIL, but also one of its most strategic assets for the coming decades.
