“WE have been printing posters, pamphlets and stickers since mid-April and the work is expected to go on for another few days now. It wasn’t like this in 2008 when we completed all orders in eight to 10 days,” said Rajab Ali Qadri, who runs his printing business at Pakistan Chowk in Karachi.

“This time we also got work from interior Sindh. We did plenty of printing for Quetta, too, so were using 100 per cent of our printing capacity. But in 2008, it was about 40 per cent,” he said.

“I own six printing presses and they are printing non-stop this time in order to complete all the orders. Just one press is doing Rs10,000 to Rs15,000 worth of business a day so we are doing quite well. We lost business only during the four days when there was a strike call.

“With six presses making Rs15,000 a day you can do simple maths to calculate our collective losses for those days,” he remarked.

The printer also said that he received the most orders for printing of colour posters. “Full printing plate size colour posters, 18 by 23 inches, were the most in demand this election season,” he said. “Seeing the huge demand for them during the elections, even the paper sellers increased their rates by Rs500. So a ream of Rs2,300 is now selling for Rs2,800. The price may come down once the election fever is over, hopefully,” he added.

A lane away is a row of panaflex printers. “We were very busy throughout last month, but are through with most of the election work now,” said a printer at Al-Raza Panaflex Printers, adding that they weren’t even in business back in 2008.

“Back then the majority of printing for signboards, banners, etc., was done on fabric. This is reasonably new technology. So there is no comparison between then and now,” he said.

The panaflex printers said that they charge Rs15 per square foot. Mian Muhammad Sajid Shahzad another panaflex printer said that he knows people, who have their own panaflex printing machines, make a quick profit of over a million during the election season. “The usual Rs10 to Rs12 printing per square foot went up to Rs15 per square foot recently. The material, etc., costs Rs13 and the profit margin is Rs2 per square foot. It is a lot,” he said.

Meanwhile, Shaikh Nisar Ahmed Parchamwala, who runs VIP Flags in Korangi, one of the largest flag-makers in the country, said that on the whole they did far better business making and selling party flags than in 2008, but as far as getting orders from Karachi was concerned, things were not as good. “We did and are still doing good business thanks to orders from interior Sindh, especially from Hyderabad, Sukkur and Larkana, but got far less orders from Karachi,” he said.

“The most orders we got for machine print and silk-screen printed flags were from the PPP followed by PML Functional,” he said. “The flags are mostly polyester or satin and cost from Rs10 to Rs300, depending on the size and material,” he added.

The flag-maker explained that the cheapest flag was the small one that people put on their motorcycles and the biggest ones were two feet by three feet, three feet by four-and-a-half feet in size that are hung on poles or used during rallies. “Caps with various party logos were the next big sellers, but again mostly in the interior of Sindh,” he concluded.