One of the flagship events of the Paper Industry in the country, PaperTech 2021 was held recently with the theme of Making Indian Pulp & Paper Industry World Class. Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), in collaboration with Indian Paper Manufacturers Association (IPMA), organised the 15th edition of PaperTech 2021 as a Virtual Conference, which was attended by over 150 participants.

PaperTech as an endeavour has been facilitating energy & environment performance improvement in India’s Pulp & Paper Industry and helping them in achieving world class standards for the last fourteen years.

Thematic areas that PaperTech 2021 focussed upon were latest innovations in paper manufacturing, environmental best practices, energy & productivity improvement opportunities and best operating practices.

Mr Sanjay Singh, Chairman PaperTech 2021, Group Head Paper & Packaging ITC Ltd. and former IPMA President, said Paper Industry could derive a lot of benefits from the provisions of Industry 4.0 in terms of increasing efficiencies and boosting production. He said incorporation of Industry 4.0 will not only yield financial benefits but improve pulp production, speed up the paper machines and can also lead to reduction in chemical consumption. He also discussed adoption of new technologies such as Ozone bleaching technology for de-risking the paper production process.

Thematic areas that PaperTech 2021 focussed upon were latest innovations in paper manufacturing, environmental best practices, energy & productivity improvement opportunities and best operating practices.

Mr N Gopalaratnam, Chairman Seshasayee Paper & Boards Ltd. and former IPMA President, a veteran of the industry who has been associated with PaperTech since its inception, deliberated on the sustainability in the industry. According to him, sustainability is often linked to environmental performance but it has three different components. Besides being environmentally compatible, sustainability also includes being socially desirable and economically viable.

Mr A S Mehta, President & Director JK Paper Ltd. and President IPMA, concurring with Mr Gopalaratnam, said environment is just one aspect of sustainability. Sustainability also needs to be viewed from the points of view of all the stakeholders including employees, investors, local community, customers and vendors etc. We need the right kind of trade-off between viability, competitiveness and sustainability, he said.

Dr Ashok Kumar, Executive Director, Pudumjee Paper Products Ltd said several pathbreaking initiatives by organised paper mills such as social forestry need to be brought in the public domain through wider communication. Paper industry associations need to come together to bust the myths like paper industry is cutting forests and reinforce the fact that the industry is growing more trees than harvesting.

According to IPMA, the per capita consumption of paper in India is a low 15 kgs as compared to the global average of 57 kgs and 200+ kgs in developed countries. Therefore, growth is bound to take place as the Indian economy grows. Additionally, the demand for paper is growing as increasingly novel forms for usage of paper are coming up. Events such as PaperTech are catalysing the process of sharing best practices and help shape a world class industry.

“On its part, the Paper Industry has gone up the sustainability curve and has become far more technologically advanced over the last few years. To secure raw material especially wood, pioneering work has been carried out by the industry over the last three decades in producing tree saplings which are disease and drought resistant and can be grown in a variety of agro-climatic conditions with a view to aid growth” said Mr Rohit Pandit, Secretary General IPMA.

The Paper Industry has been working hard on reducing specific energy consumption. Under the PAT (Perform Achieve Trade) scheme of the Government, under the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency (NMEEE), the Paper Industry has been one of the top performing sectors, and has over-achieved the mandated stiff targets.

Currently an estimated 500,000 farmers are engaged in growing plantations of Eucalyptus / Subabul, etc in the country. Over 1.2 million hectares of land in the rural areas has been cumulatively brought under pulpwood plantation by the industry bolstering the green cover and the resultant carbon sequestration, generating rural livelihoods, and supplementing farm incomes.