Paper Mills are directed to 'Curb' pollution in Delhi-NCR by shutting down themselves two days a week

After passing the direction to the pulp and paper industry in National Capital Region (NCR) not running on PNG or cleaner fuel shall be allowed to operate only up to eight hours a day from Monday to Friday and shall not be allowed to operate on Saturdays and Sundays, the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) has assessed the technical and process requirements in individual sectors in details. CAQM has directed in its new notification, paper mills in the NCR shall be permitted to schedule their operations (without any restrictions on number of hours per day) only for 5 days per week i.e. from Monday to Friday and shall remain closed / inoperative on Saturdays and Sundays.

In view of the technical requirements of different industrial processes and the prevailing trend of Air Quality Index, the Commission, in furtherance of Direction No. 46 and 47 dated 2nd  December 2O21 and 7th December 2021 respectively read with Order of the Commission dated 11th December 2021 regarding Review of Direction No. 47, directs as under with immediate effect and till further orders.

After concerns and submissions made by the associations, The commission finds the contentions related to total cycle time for processing being much more than 8 hours in most industrial processes merits consideration.

NCR Paper Mill Association (NCRPMA) raised its concern over the direction, The commission imbibes the following points that some units are engaged in activities providing essential services and partial closure will result in serious disruption of supply and allied products to Delhi - NCR leading to shortage; Closures will also lead to shutting of units or restricting their operations leading to non-procurement of raw materials and other resources from large number of small-scale industries and individuals; Operation for only 8 hours a day is not technically practical and shall render the boilers ineffective, hampering production efficiency; Some units have taken-up with agencies concerned for supplying gas to its unit but unable to shift to PNG for want of gas infrastructure and supply and those not connected with PNG have informed that on availability of PNG infrastructure they will convert to PNG.

Talking to The Pulp and Paper Times, Mr. Arvind Agarwal, President- NCRPMA said, “With continued efforts of NCR Paper Mill Association, the Paper Mills in UP NCR have been permitted to operate for 5 Days round the clock in a week and to remain inoperative for two days i.e on Saturday and Sunday. The NCR Paper Mill Association is making its full efforts to get the Direction further modified for operating the units for 7 days a week,”

The Commission further directs that such industries are however still not operating with PNG / cleaner fuels and continue to use polluting fuels such as coal, HSD and to a relatively lesser extent with fuels like paddy husk, biomass pellets/briquettes, wood chips and bagasse etc;

Mr. Agarwal said that this direction of the commission would cause heavy losses to paper mills. “There are around 50 Pulp and Paper mills located in NCR U.P. who are going to lose 24000 MT paper productions weekly for the sake of curbing pollution”. He said Governments will also lose GST revenue of INR 8.75 cr for two days closure in a week. 

Paper Mills will suffer salary loss of above 50,000 directly employees for 2 days in a week and the approximate salary amount will be Rs. 4 crores.

In addition to the above, there is a huge loss of Fuel-burning for starting and closing the operations frequently. Due to a delay in supply of timely delivery of finished products to the customers, the orders may be canceled.