Comments
Country’s import dependence on newsprint may further reduce this year after the revival of government-owned NEPA Ltd as it aims to produce about 50,000 tonne in next seven months. The share of import in total consumption was 47 per cent in 2021-22 against 65 per cent in the previous year.
The annual capacity of the plant has been increased to one lakh tonne from 88,000 tonne earlier, before its closure in 2016. “The actual production was about 42,000 tonne when it was closed. But we are sure that next year we will run it with full capacity,” said Saurabv Deb, Chairman and Managing Director of NEPA.
Newsprint demand in India
| Year | Consumption (in tonnes) | Share of import (%) |
|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | 24,97,795 | 51.9 |
| 2019-20 | 20,78,513 | 62.4 |
| 2020-21 | 10,03,020 | 64.7 |
| 2021-22 | 12,64,689 | 47.3 |
Source: Industry association
The company, which produces newsprint by using recycled newspapers and books, targets to achieve a turnover of ₹395 crore in FY23 and ₹554 crore in FY24.
On strategy for selling the newsprint, Deb said: “One is the quality as we have the best standard 42-44 gsm in the industry. Clientele is not a problem as various newspaper publishers are our clients. I have personally visited many publishers and convinced them to buy our product.”
After the revival, the efficiency has gone up and Deb said the unit will soon diversify into writing and printing papers production. However, newsprint will remain its forte, he added.
“I will analyse the market more before diversifying into writing papers whether to get into retail space in writing pads,” he said adding as some imports of raw material could be required to produce good quality writing papers. He ruled out diversifying to papers used in photocopy machine.
Related Stories
Writing, printing papers prices hiked by ₹3,000-5,000/t from August 1
Demand exceeds supply, raw material import costs zoomHeavy Industries Minister Mahendra Nath Pandey had inaugurated the upgraded plant on August 23 in Nepanagar, Madhya Pradesh. The plant was revived at a cost of ₹500 crore.
Deb said that though readership of newspaper has gone down with the advancement of technology, the demand for newsprint has not declined. The call for a Atmanirbhar Bharat will further increase demand for domestically produced newsprint, he said.
“We will make further investments to improve the system and processes as well as on new products development and marketing activities to grow our business and become profitable,” Deb added.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.