Abstract

Abstract:The Indian paper industry is one of the traditional industries of Indiaconsisting of over 500 units with an installed capacity (excluding newsprint)of over 7.5 mm tone per annum. The capacity utilization in the industry hasremained low at approximately 60% but has lately picked up. This was owingpartly to some 200 mills being small and many of which were sick. Effectively,only 321 mills are operational. Out of these, 172 mills make up for 54% of themarket, with the top ten claiming a share of over 28%. The large segmentconsists of 21 large mills. The incidence of sickness is high in mills withless than 15,000 tpa capacity. The consumption of paper products is growing ata fast pace of around 6.5% and is expected to further go up in future. Theindustry now uses three sources of raw materials - recycled paper, wood andagro based, and waste. The recycled paper, comparatively cheaper, comprisesalmost 40% of the total raw material requirements at present. Paper is one ofthe most usable consumer items which has largely used throughout the world. Itis generally prepared from cellulosic material by treating it with differenttype of chemicals and then process through roller and driers to make a suitablequality paper. The quality of paper depends upon the end use of the paper. Asthe demand for paper has increased, more timber has been needed to meet thedemand for wood pulp. By using waste paper to produce new paper the demand canbe met to some extent. Waste paper is an important raw material for paper andpaper board manufacturing. Consumption of waste paper in India is very lowcompared to advanced countries. This is mainly due to lack of organizedcollection. However it is estimated that 25% of all paper consumed in India isnow recycled.

Keywords:wood, cellulose,chemicals, paper, pulp, recycling.