Raising concern over the fall in rubber production for the third consecutive year, the tyre and rubber industries have sought urgent government intervention to stem the slide in domestic production.

Quoting the production data released by Rubber Board, the rubber consuming industries pointed out that there was a significant decline in production of 11 per cent in the first two months of the current fiscal. The fall in production comes on the heels of 16 per cent drop in production in FY-14 and 15 per cent drop in FY-15.

It is pointed out that the domestic rubber availability has emerged as a major concern for rubber consuming industries.

With auto sector coming out of a long recession, the demand for natural rubber is expected to go up during the current fiscal, Rajiv Budhraja, Director General, Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA) said. The tyre industry has put in large investments to meet the pick up in auto demand but raw material concerns are likely to play a spoilsport in the Make-in-India story as far as the tyre sector is concerned, he added.

According to consuming industries, the rubber consumption increased by 4 per cent in FY15 and has held steady during the current fiscal. As a result, the domestic production-consumption gap is widening. In the previous fiscal, the gap was more than 3.6 lakh tonnes. This is likely to increase further in the current fiscal.

“Uncertainty in domestic rubber availability is giving jitters to rubber MSMEs who do not have the wherewithal to have large inventories” said Mohinder Gupta, President All India Rubber Industries Association (AIRIA).

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