“Out of the total wood usage in India, the paper industry hardly consumes 7 to 8% wood; 92 to 93% usage is by other industries and not the paper industry. But unfortunately the tag of forest destroyer has come to the paper industry,” says Anil Kumar, past president of Indian Pulp and Paper Technical Association, and executive director and CEO of Shreyans Industries.
At a time when many environmentalists firmly believe that the production and use of paper has a number of adverse effects on the environment, collectively known as paper pollution, Kumar’s statement may come in as a real smack on their face.
“80% of the wood requirements of the paper industry today is met by social forestry without any burden on the traditional forest area,” he says.
Paper industry and agro residues
Kumar, who took part at the press conference held on the occasion of IPPTA Golden Jubilee at Eros Hotel in New Delhi on 5 March 2015, says that the paper industry has helped the environment by consuming agro residues.
Not many years ago, one of the biggest problems in Punjab during the harvesting season was the huge heaps of rice and weed straw that had to be burned due to lack of takers. Travelling in Punjab during this season was a severe threat to the respiratory system due to the ever-rising smoke from the fields on the either side of the road.
The paper industry, which is a large consumer of agro residues, has helped Punjab two-fold. First, it helped the state in improving the environment by pulping the husk and straw; and second, it helped the farmers economically who are now earning some income out of their unusable waste.
Integrated paper mills
Integrated paper mills in India generate 60% of the power they use by utilizing the black liquor from the pulping process. “If we use the bark of the wood in a green boiler, we can meet 75 to 80% of our energy needs,” says Kumar
. Many mills are moving towards this goal. Investments are also being made in wind, solar and hydel power. “In the near future we will generate almost 100% of our energy from green sources,” claims a confident Kumar.
Today many of the integrated paper mills are using 40 cubic metres of water per tonne against 200 cubic metres of water per tonne a few years ago. The quality of effluent discharge is so good that it is used by farmers for irrigation.
Challenges and constraints
“The demand for paper in India is projected to double in the next ten years – in fact India is likely to contribute almost 20% to the overall growth of paper demand globally,” says Neehar Aggarwal, CEO Ballarpur International Graphic Paper Holdings, who was also present at the press conference.
While this means that the paper industry is on a growth trajectory, at the same time it is confronting some strong tailwinds threatening to slow down the momentum. Some of the major challenges faced by the industry are price and availability of raw material, escalating energy prices and the high cost of funds hindering the ability of this capital intensive industry to expand.
Further, there is also an increasing pressure on the paper industry to cater to the specific and specialized requirements of the rapidly modernizing print industry. The Indian paper industry is more than a century old.
At present there are over 850 paper mills manufacturing a wide variety of items required by consumers. The Indian mills manufacture industrial and cultural grades and other speciality papers. The industry can be classified into three categories according to the raw material consumed – wood-based, agro-based and waste paper-based.
While there are approximately 14 wood-based mills, the remaining 836 mills are based on non-conventional raw materials like agro residues, recycled fibre or waste paper
