Uttrakhand Govt. has allowed ‘Paper Manufacturing’; Paper Mills perplexed to operate amid disrupted supply chain

Uttrakhand Govt. has allowed ‘Paper Manufacturing’; Paper Mills perplexed to operate amid disrupted supply chain

Udham Singh Nagar | 6th April 2020 | The Pulp and Paper Times:

This could be a ‘sigh of relief’ under lockdown for the paper industry as paper mills in Uttrakhand have succeeded in securing the permission to operate their plant under essential commodity services. Uttrakhand Government has issued the order to paper mills in this regards as they come under continuous process industry, with proper safety measures to be implemented in the mill premises.

Talking to The Pulp and Paper Times, Mr. Vaibhav Batra, Director, KM Papers said, “Yes, Uttrakhand Govt. has given a ‘conditional’ permission to paper mills to run their plant. We are not allowed to transport our finished paper products and waste paper to other state or district. Means, if you have a stock of waste paper you can start the production till it’s totally consumed,”

“It is a very unclear picture because we have a labour crisis also. Our most of the skilled labours are from Uttar Pradesh. There is no movement of buses and trains to commune our labour,” Mr. Batra said.

Paper mills are perplexed whether they should run the plant or not. Paper traders and dealers in other states are closed down and not generating new orders to paper mills. Paper Industry doesn’t have much capacity to stock finished good in their warehouses or run the plant on lower capacity.

A major Writing & Printing and Newsprint manufacturer paper mill, Katyayini Paper Mill has much stock of waste paper but feeling the heat of skilled labour crisis. “We have got the permission from Uttrakhand government to run the plant. We are a prominent manufacturer of newsprint and we have adequate space to stock the finished paper but shortage of labour delaying the whole process. We are trying to connect our employees, and planning to provide food to them in the premises,” Mr. Rajesh Agarwal, Managing Director said.

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 Mr. Batra explains the situation further said, “Most of the countries are under lockdown and the consumption of paper is very low which will hike the prices of waste paper. In India, the price for finished paper may go up due to non-availability of waste paper”.

“What we do with this permission if we can’t give movement to our finished good to dealers in other states. Most of the state borders are sealed due to corona. The whole supply chain is disturbed and dealers in this chain can’t sell their paper stocks further”, Mr. Samir Khan, Director, Multiwal Pulp & Board Mills Pvt. Ltd. said.

According to Mr. Khan the price of waste paper will not be shot up, as the paper mills have a pile-up of waste paper in their warehouses and waste paper supplier companies are also on the same page.

This lockdown will push back the paper industry six months back. It is totally unplanned and paper mills are unsure of their future. Middle scale paper mills are bearing INR 20 to 30 lakhs loss on account of salary, Interest and other expenditure per day. 

Lock-down has also de-railed the new paper mills future strategy. they have put their expansion on hold and clueless for the future course of action.

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