1.   Although India has over 100 Universities turning out thousands of scholars and graduates every year, the University Press in India has not yet developed to meet the growing needs of the country for scholarly and research material.  A large number of factors have worked against the healthy growth of university presses in India .  Printing came to India after it had already attained a certain stage of perfection in the west.  Its early development in India was largely influenced by Christian missionaries and government agencies.  While university presses in the west took an active part in the development of printing techniques, Indian universities attached no special importance to the printing of their books in their own presses since private presses were available in plenty to do their work.  It may come as a surprise to many that the Madras University , one of the oldest universities in India , has no press of its own and it is perfectly satisfied with its printing arrangements which it has fixed up with a number of private presence.  

2.    As against the experience of the Madras University , a number of Indian universities have found it worthwhile to set up their own printing establishments to bring out their scholarly publications and technical journals.  Among these may be mentioned the Univerrsity of Aligarh, Varanasi, Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta.  A history of these institutions would read more like the history of printing establishments since the concerned universities were interested only in printing certain materials and not necessarily in spreading the message contained in them and in their wide dissemination.  Since the budget was provided by the university authorities for printing such materials, they were printed and stacked in the warehouses awaiting distribution as and when considered necessary by those departments who sponsored the publications.  Printers cannot become publishers overnight unless they develop their distribution network and launch the necessary publicity drive which private publishers of similar publications adopt as part of their day-to-day activities.  The Indian university presses have therefore remained largely as printing establishments and in many cases their publications are being distributed through wholesalers, who are not particularly suited to handle the distribution of such scholarly publications.  What is more the publications put out by the university presses do not receive the necessary editorial treatment or exhibit the production qualities which go to make for their successful commercial exploitation.  Their pricing is not related either to the nature of the subject or the type of clientele for which they are meant.  

3.   Absence of arrangements for copy editing, designing and an intelligent pricing policy which would again influence the number of copies to be printed are the basic weaknesses from which the Indian university presses suffer even at initial stage of printing.  There is thus no tie-up between production and distribution.  The managers of the university presses in India feel that their job ends with printing of the material according to schedule and that distribution is none of their concern.  They are perhaps right in holding this view since they were never designed as publishing houses by the sponsoring universities who are otherwise so fully engrossed in their own academic programme.  

4.   There is a lot of scope for the development of university presses in India provided two conditions are met satisfactorily:  Firstly, there should be a clear understanding of the role and functions of the university press among the authorities concerned so that university presses operate as publishing houses rather than the printing wing of the Indian universities.  Secondly, since the university press is not necessarily a commercially viable institution, adequate support – both financially and technically – has to be provided by the government to put the Indian university presses on sound lines.