Rolling Stocks
Content
Rolling Stocks: A Paper is a Paper
Paper has come to play an important role in everyday life of people. Just spend a day in the life of a person and then it is easy to find how paper has become an indispensible part of modern existence. Just imagine what will happen if paper as a product were to vanish from the planet. What would you miss? Morning tea with the newspaper, children note books, letters, leaflets, tissues, books, cards, carton, packaging and others. It is such an important product in our everyday existence but irony is that we don’t have brands the way other product categories have. To our customers a paper is a paper is a paper. We need to break this. The above remark made by JK, the chief executive officer of one of the country’s oldest paper mills; Rolling Stock set the tone for especially convened meeting. Rolling Stock is among the top paper producers in India. It has manufacturing a number of manufacturing facilities in India and it is soon to start paper production in one of the Southeast Asian countries. The company manufactures a wide variety of paper. It is the largest producer of writing and printing paper. It enjoys a respectable share in the high end coated paper market. In the coated wood free paper segment its share is close of half of the entire market. In the bond paper market the company enjoys close to eighty percent share of the market. In another category called Maplitho market the company enjoys about forty percent market share. The cursory analysis of these figures suggests that the company is a leader in the paper market. Unlike the most others who would be content with the present position of Rolling Stock in the industry, JK or Jugal Kishore is not one among them. He attributes the present status of the company to first mover advantage. His grandfather MK ventured into paper making on a very small scale and with the passage of time he only moved with the current. But now things are looking very different. Mohan Kumar or MK was a man of vision. He could foresee even when India was ruled by British that paper is crucial for the development of not only of the country but of civilization. Paper is education and learning. And paper is critical for the intellectual growth of people. Paper is knowledge and its dissemination. Therefore he saw business opportunity in paper rolling and end up creating Rolling Stock. Paper making depends upon wood pulp. In the beginning there environmental sensitivity was not really a big issue. The abundance of raw material on the one hand and huge latent demand on the other made paper making a compelling business proposition to MK. Rolling Stock although being a leader in the industry stands at a crucial juncture. The paper industry for long enjoyed a comfortable time as demand for different types of papers registered explosive growth. Take for instance bulk newspaper market. There has been huge expansion of newspaper reading population and consequently more newsprint is demanded by publishers of newspapers and magazines. Increase in population and higher registration in schools fueled demand for books and note books. Further the invention of photocopiers created a new paper space of photocopy paper. And then there a whole lot of special forms of papers were needed. Rolling Stocks kept adopting new technology and modernized its plants to keep pace with time. JK had the following to say: Leadership is not a destination. It is the beginning of the journey. In the beginning we were able to push our products to our customers because they lacked choice. There were only a few producers 1
of paper. The demand was constantly growing and we were better known. Our heritage and being in the business for a long time worked in our favor. But now our business seems to be getting down the commoditization spiral. The margins are getting under pressure. Maintaining both top line and bottom line growth had become a daunting task. For long we have called ourselves as the quality player. But then today who is not? Various segments of business have come under pressure from competition. In all the segments bulk, retail and specialty paper markets the company’s frontline sales staff is experiencing new found aggression on the part of buyers. The SK, Surendera Kumar who heads the sales function seemed upset. His department is lately been asked to do a lot of explaining to the top management given the fact that sales revenue and market share both have come under severe pressure. Many people in the company have even alleged that sales head is not doing enough to motivate his team to get more business from the market. From the top SK is subjected to a lot of pressure to improve top line. But it not only the top management which is pressurizing him but he is equally getting strained so far as his sales staff is concerned. Upon being asked to explain the ground reality he has following to say: Our company has had a lot of advantage being one of the early ones to introduce quality in paper. While other manufacturers were still basking in the comfort of the regulated economy we were first ones to initiate quality improvement and adopt technology. Consequently we made better paper technologically which appealed to our customers. But now most of our competitors especially with higher sales also have tied up foreign collaborators to improve product quality. My sales representatives now complain that buyers have become demanding. They negotiate price vigorously. Gone are the days when people telephoned tens of times to make sure that they got all the paper in the quantity they needed. I enjoyed great power over my buyers. They were all the time seeking appointment to meet me to so that I could personally ensure that their requirements would be met. But as time passed the number of these called have vanished. On the contrary my sales staff now has to seek permission from buyers to meet them. Buyers demand discounts or other gifts. We are on a very slippery road. The sales are not easy to come by. My staff is getting highly de motivated. Even after putting in a lot of extra time the potential accounts are difficult to get converted and the existing one are dividing business. This observation by the sales head SK, acted alike dropping of a bomb. The disturbance on everybody’s face was quite palpable. It was not difficult to understand the implication of what SK had said. If he sale is difficult to make, the tomorrow the signs of decline would become signs of decline of the entire company. It is quite possible that the company may get stuck in the downward spiral. Rolling Stock has an impressive product line. Although to outsiders paper is a paper. But actually it is not. Paper comes in different forms: Newprint- this paper is used for printing newspapers. Many of the news papers are clients of the company and they have had a long historical association with the company. Newspaper printing is not an easy job. The shop floor conditions usually are very demanding. Accordingly the paper has to have adequate strength and a particular kind of surface characteristics. Consumers usually buy a
2
news paper like the Times of Indian or the Hindustan Times but the quality of paper plays an important role. Sanitary Tissue- second line of the company constitutes paper used for making sanitary tissues. Tissues are made with rag pulp content in lower grammage. Paper absorbency and retention are important considerations. The company supplies to a lot of big and small paper sanitary tissue marketing companies which operate both in B to B and B to C markets. Stationary paper- sold in bulk to stationary products manufacturers which make products like notebooks and writing pads. The buyers for this paper are usually small and medium manufacturers. These are among the most demanding of all the customers that Rolling Stocks sell its product to. MICR cheque paper- the term MICR stands for magnetic ink character recognition where in the words and figures are read by computer. A magnetic field is created around these characters. The paper here is carefully manufactured which makes it resistant to any kind of ink eradications. It is a kind of high tech paper. The technology which reacts when contacted with acid, alkali, bleach or other organic solvent. The primary market for this paper is cheque printers which are given to customers by banks. Tea bag paper-this a especially formulated paper with porous surface which allow tea to get dissolved in water. Tea bags are made by different tea marketers like Tata and Hindustan Unilever. A lot of small manufacturers also market tea in bags form. Labeling paper- labeling is critical requirement for any packaged product irrespective of the fact whether it is industrial or consumer. Virtually all consumer products are sold in packaged form. Hence there is huge demand for label paper. Labels are printed on offset machines and hence technically the paper should have good wax pick quality. On the one side of the paper the printing is done and on the other gum is used for pasting. Considerations like print quality, compressibility and absorbency are attached importance by the buyers. Bond paper- this is a paper made especially suitable to electronic printing and for use in copiers and desktop printing. The quality of the bond paper is that it is expected to be strong and durable. The size of the bond paper is well established and usually it has base weight between 13 to 25 lbs. A good bond paper has rigidity, erasability and absorbent. This is sold in reams of five hundred sheets. The marketing head of the company MH, Mike Hold so far somehow escaped the attention of JK. MH had joined Rolling Stocks as a summer intern about ten years back when he pursued his MBA from one of the top business school run by a central university. Having listened to sales head now JK turned to MH. This was obvious progression of the meeting. The loss of business is not a matter of concern only for the sales or the top management. The top is responsible for the results. The shareholders who had invested with the company are beginning to lose market value. The share prices seemed artificially stable. But once the internal reality gets revealed on to the outside world the people may start off loading shares and consequently market value would certainly slide. Erosion in the market capitalization makes the Board members jittery. They lose face. There is certainly a role of marketing here. JK has built the company inch by inch. He although not formally educated somehow knows the pulse. Bending forward toward MH he looked straight into his eyes as if he demanded an explanation: Mike Hold, on your advice the company spends a huge sum of money on brand building exercise three years back. You justified spending on the ground that branding is the name of the game. You wanted to create a paper brand unparallel to any other in India. I agree we were not known as a company to all. 3
People could neither recognize nor recall our company name. Back then I had serious difference of opinion with you and I firmly believed that a company like ours which markets paper to businesses both large and small we did not need awareness and recognition similar to FMCG company. But then you argued that company image building helps in long term. What happened to multi crore campaigns that you initiated and where is return on marketing investment? Our sales are skidding and margins are under pressure. Mike Hodd fresh from business school had a lot of energy and he wanted to create a brand in a market which most people considered a commodity. The Rolling Stocks Company was sitting on a rich history and to many experts the company was linked to the paper revolution technically. It has supplied paper to people who fought for independence prior to 1947. Both public newsletters and secret notes were written on the paper produced very locally by its founders. And then the company had come a long way to become one of the top players in modern Indian. In a way the company through its paper contributed to building of modern educated India. If news papers could usher in new debates and change the seat of power Rolling Stock was instrumental both in ushering in social change and political change. Sensing the value of heritage, Mike had created a brand building campaign which attempted to leverage its heritage. A series of campaigns were launched: ‘All have past but we have heritage’ – chronicled how company started with purely handmade paper and went on to become a paper giant ‘From colony to free India’- exhibited the role of company’s paper in freedom movement ‘Rolling Stocks in everyone’s life’- showed how paper touches everyday moments of everyone ‘Can’t stop’- showcased how consumers who used stationary or books made of company’s paper could not stop reading or writing Millions of rupees were spent on this brand building efforts. Many advertising critiques appreciated the campaign for its creativity. A poll done back then when the campaign was being run had revealed the company name as one of the highly recalled names. There was not a big spike in sale of company‟s product but certainly the brand had gained both in terms of recall and recognition. What do you have to say Mr Mike Hodd? To that Hodd reacted: Everybody understands that paper is a paper is a paper. This statement is true for all classes of papers we make. Once the packaging is removed the identity of the paper is lost. One brand cannot be set apart from the other. This is a big constraint. I wanted to make sure that our paper develops into a brand. And one of the ways to achieve this was to create corporate brand with high recognition and recall. Our company brand can be fine method of achieving this. Therefore we had run multi million rupee campaigns to teach people to differentiate the paper by knowing who makes it. Our campaign was widely appreciated both by experts and ordinary people. I would want to you to remember the sales boost that we achieved during the course of the campaign. Since we could not sustain it the sales began to slide down. In my opinion this is the only way to build a brand in this category. Our life as a paper manufacturer is further compounded by technological developments. The internet penetration, mobile phones, and the invention of other forms of storage devices have further compounded our problems. While Mike Hodd justified his campaign and elaborated upon the reasons of decline JK got visibly upset. His dislike for the arguments which Hodd proposed was palpable. It was a defeatist approach to handling a challenging problem. Before Mike could complete, JK interrupted Mike: 4
You mean to say paper industry is going to vanish in future. The developments in information and communication technology would wipe out existence of company like ours. There is no way you can justify decline. Paper is a growing industry. When car was invented people believed the end of days for horse buggy but we still have carts and horse buggies. In my opinion your strategy actually has been an easy approach to handling a difficult situation. But more disappointing is that you did not even recognize that we have a difficult situation in front of us. The simplistic perception of a complex situation made to adopt a clichéd path to brand building. Just advertising and raise slogans and brand are made. Recall and recognition is first starting point of brand building. Did you ever scrutinize to know what actually you wanted to convey? And whatever you spend millions on was that relevant? If in your own beliefs believe that a paper is a paper then you have lost it. You cannot create brand. Brand is not a known label. It is much more. A paper is what we make but it is not what customers want to buy. The pitch and tone of JK pushed everybody froze everybody in the room. The skin on his forehead shrank only to reveal a complex network of lines. And he stretched the eyes open pushing his pupil outwards. JK seemed to have posed a question to which none seemed to have an answer to! Appendix: Opinions of people in popular media: “The paper industry is likely to grow in future. The usage of paper will continued to be used by people. It is impossible to think of a society completely going paperless. Paper industry is likely come under greater scrutiny on account of ecological concerns. Plastic industry has come under severe critics and is being charged for polluting planets. The governmental response to these concerns has been in the form of enactment of laws against usage of certain kinds of plastics and plastic products. Awareness campaigns dissuade people to minimize if not eliminate use of plastic. It is quite possible that paper may also be subjected to voluntary and imposed responses. Paper industry hugely relies upon forest for procuring its core raw material. Forest and wood availability are critical determinant of the extent to which this industry can grow and prosper.” “Paper is closely tied up with knowledge and education. Economic progress depends upon education and there lies the need for paper of different kinds. When one makes a case for „paperless‟ society, some kind of impossibility is thought of. As long as progress is an aspiration, usage of paper cannot be completely ruled out. It is difficult to envisage a scenario without physical newspaper, note books, printed books, greeting cards, and tissues of various kinds. It is not correct to expect the future to be a lineal extension of past. It may also be foolish to expect the future to be completely divorced of the past. Within change there has to be continuity of thought, things, and institutions. It is here one needs figure out how the this industry would emerge in future.” Facts: Paper industry de-licensed July 1997. It is one of the priority sectors for foreign collaboration and foreign equity participation. The RBI approval is automatic. Various schemes are in place to encourage investments in paper industry using unconventional row materials. This reflects policy priority to encourage new methods and technology to minimize the damage to environment. Currently the industry is made up of about five hundred units which manufacture paper and paper boards. In terms of demand and supply India is almost self sufficient in paper production and consumption. The proportion of paper production based on wood and non wood is close to sixty -forty. 5
Paper has come to play an important role in everyday life of people. Just spend a day in the life of a person and then it is easy to find how paper has become an indispensible part of modern existence. Just imagine what will happen if paper as a product were to vanish from the planet. What would you miss? Morning tea with the newspaper, children note books, letters, leaflets, tissues, books, cards, carton, packaging and others. It is such an important product in our everyday existence but irony is that we don’t have brands the way other product categories have. To our customers a paper is a paper is a paper. We need to break this. The above remark made by JK, the chief executive officer of one of the country’s oldest paper mills; Rolling Stock set the tone for especially convened meeting. Rolling Stock is among the top paper producers in India. It has manufacturing a number of manufacturing facilities in India and it is soon to start paper production in one of the Southeast Asian countries. The company manufactures a wide variety of paper. It is the largest producer of writing and printing paper. It enjoys a respectable share in the high end coated paper market. In the coated wood free paper segment its share is close of half of the entire market. In the bond paper market the company enjoys close to eighty percent share of the market. In another category called Maplitho market the company enjoys about forty percent market share. The cursory analysis of these figures suggests that the company is a leader in the paper market. Unlike the most others who would be content with the present position of Rolling Stock in the industry, JK or Jugal Kishore is not one among them. He attributes the present status of the company to first mover advantage. His grandfather MK ventured into paper making on a very small scale and with the passage of time he only moved with the current. But now things are looking very different. Mohan Kumar or MK was a man of vision. He could foresee even when India was ruled by British that paper is crucial for the development of not only of the country but of civilization. Paper is education and learning. And paper is critical for the intellectual growth of people. Paper is knowledge and its dissemination. Therefore he saw business opportunity in paper rolling and end up creating Rolling Stock. Paper making depends upon wood pulp. In the beginning there environmental sensitivity was not really a big issue. The abundance of raw material on the one hand and huge latent demand on the other made paper making a compelling business proposition to MK. Rolling Stock although being a leader in the industry stands at a crucial juncture. The paper industry for long enjoyed a comfortable time as demand for different types of papers registered explosive growth. Take for instance bulk newspaper market. There has been huge expansion of newspaper reading population and consequently more newsprint is demanded by publishers of newspapers and magazines. Increase in population and higher registration in schools fueled demand for books and note books. Further the invention of photocopiers created a new paper space of photocopy paper. And then there a whole lot of special forms of papers were needed. Rolling Stocks kept adopting new technology and modernized its plants to keep pace with time. JK had the following to say: Leadership is not a destination. It is the beginning of the journey. In the beginning we were able to push our products to our customers because they lacked choice. There were only a few producers 1
of paper. The demand was constantly growing and we were better known. Our heritage and being in the business for a long time worked in our favor. But now our business seems to be getting down the commoditization spiral. The margins are getting under pressure. Maintaining both top line and bottom line growth had become a daunting task. For long we have called ourselves as the quality player. But then today who is not? Various segments of business have come under pressure from competition. In all the segments bulk, retail and specialty paper markets the company’s frontline sales staff is experiencing new found aggression on the part of buyers. The SK, Surendera Kumar who heads the sales function seemed upset. His department is lately been asked to do a lot of explaining to the top management given the fact that sales revenue and market share both have come under severe pressure. Many people in the company have even alleged that sales head is not doing enough to motivate his team to get more business from the market. From the top SK is subjected to a lot of pressure to improve top line. But it not only the top management which is pressurizing him but he is equally getting strained so far as his sales staff is concerned. Upon being asked to explain the ground reality he has following to say: Our company has had a lot of advantage being one of the early ones to introduce quality in paper. While other manufacturers were still basking in the comfort of the regulated economy we were first ones to initiate quality improvement and adopt technology. Consequently we made better paper technologically which appealed to our customers. But now most of our competitors especially with higher sales also have tied up foreign collaborators to improve product quality. My sales representatives now complain that buyers have become demanding. They negotiate price vigorously. Gone are the days when people telephoned tens of times to make sure that they got all the paper in the quantity they needed. I enjoyed great power over my buyers. They were all the time seeking appointment to meet me to so that I could personally ensure that their requirements would be met. But as time passed the number of these called have vanished. On the contrary my sales staff now has to seek permission from buyers to meet them. Buyers demand discounts or other gifts. We are on a very slippery road. The sales are not easy to come by. My staff is getting highly de motivated. Even after putting in a lot of extra time the potential accounts are difficult to get converted and the existing one are dividing business. This observation by the sales head SK, acted alike dropping of a bomb. The disturbance on everybody’s face was quite palpable. It was not difficult to understand the implication of what SK had said. If he sale is difficult to make, the tomorrow the signs of decline would become signs of decline of the entire company. It is quite possible that the company may get stuck in the downward spiral. Rolling Stock has an impressive product line. Although to outsiders paper is a paper. But actually it is not. Paper comes in different forms: Newprint- this paper is used for printing newspapers. Many of the news papers are clients of the company and they have had a long historical association with the company. Newspaper printing is not an easy job. The shop floor conditions usually are very demanding. Accordingly the paper has to have adequate strength and a particular kind of surface characteristics. Consumers usually buy a
2
news paper like the Times of Indian or the Hindustan Times but the quality of paper plays an important role. Sanitary Tissue- second line of the company constitutes paper used for making sanitary tissues. Tissues are made with rag pulp content in lower grammage. Paper absorbency and retention are important considerations. The company supplies to a lot of big and small paper sanitary tissue marketing companies which operate both in B to B and B to C markets. Stationary paper- sold in bulk to stationary products manufacturers which make products like notebooks and writing pads. The buyers for this paper are usually small and medium manufacturers. These are among the most demanding of all the customers that Rolling Stocks sell its product to. MICR cheque paper- the term MICR stands for magnetic ink character recognition where in the words and figures are read by computer. A magnetic field is created around these characters. The paper here is carefully manufactured which makes it resistant to any kind of ink eradications. It is a kind of high tech paper. The technology which reacts when contacted with acid, alkali, bleach or other organic solvent. The primary market for this paper is cheque printers which are given to customers by banks. Tea bag paper-this a especially formulated paper with porous surface which allow tea to get dissolved in water. Tea bags are made by different tea marketers like Tata and Hindustan Unilever. A lot of small manufacturers also market tea in bags form. Labeling paper- labeling is critical requirement for any packaged product irrespective of the fact whether it is industrial or consumer. Virtually all consumer products are sold in packaged form. Hence there is huge demand for label paper. Labels are printed on offset machines and hence technically the paper should have good wax pick quality. On the one side of the paper the printing is done and on the other gum is used for pasting. Considerations like print quality, compressibility and absorbency are attached importance by the buyers. Bond paper- this is a paper made especially suitable to electronic printing and for use in copiers and desktop printing. The quality of the bond paper is that it is expected to be strong and durable. The size of the bond paper is well established and usually it has base weight between 13 to 25 lbs. A good bond paper has rigidity, erasability and absorbent. This is sold in reams of five hundred sheets. The marketing head of the company MH, Mike Hold so far somehow escaped the attention of JK. MH had joined Rolling Stocks as a summer intern about ten years back when he pursued his MBA from one of the top business school run by a central university. Having listened to sales head now JK turned to MH. This was obvious progression of the meeting. The loss of business is not a matter of concern only for the sales or the top management. The top is responsible for the results. The shareholders who had invested with the company are beginning to lose market value. The share prices seemed artificially stable. But once the internal reality gets revealed on to the outside world the people may start off loading shares and consequently market value would certainly slide. Erosion in the market capitalization makes the Board members jittery. They lose face. There is certainly a role of marketing here. JK has built the company inch by inch. He although not formally educated somehow knows the pulse. Bending forward toward MH he looked straight into his eyes as if he demanded an explanation: Mike Hold, on your advice the company spends a huge sum of money on brand building exercise three years back. You justified spending on the ground that branding is the name of the game. You wanted to create a paper brand unparallel to any other in India. I agree we were not known as a company to all. 3
People could neither recognize nor recall our company name. Back then I had serious difference of opinion with you and I firmly believed that a company like ours which markets paper to businesses both large and small we did not need awareness and recognition similar to FMCG company. But then you argued that company image building helps in long term. What happened to multi crore campaigns that you initiated and where is return on marketing investment? Our sales are skidding and margins are under pressure. Mike Hodd fresh from business school had a lot of energy and he wanted to create a brand in a market which most people considered a commodity. The Rolling Stocks Company was sitting on a rich history and to many experts the company was linked to the paper revolution technically. It has supplied paper to people who fought for independence prior to 1947. Both public newsletters and secret notes were written on the paper produced very locally by its founders. And then the company had come a long way to become one of the top players in modern Indian. In a way the company through its paper contributed to building of modern educated India. If news papers could usher in new debates and change the seat of power Rolling Stock was instrumental both in ushering in social change and political change. Sensing the value of heritage, Mike had created a brand building campaign which attempted to leverage its heritage. A series of campaigns were launched: ‘All have past but we have heritage’ – chronicled how company started with purely handmade paper and went on to become a paper giant ‘From colony to free India’- exhibited the role of company’s paper in freedom movement ‘Rolling Stocks in everyone’s life’- showed how paper touches everyday moments of everyone ‘Can’t stop’- showcased how consumers who used stationary or books made of company’s paper could not stop reading or writing Millions of rupees were spent on this brand building efforts. Many advertising critiques appreciated the campaign for its creativity. A poll done back then when the campaign was being run had revealed the company name as one of the highly recalled names. There was not a big spike in sale of company‟s product but certainly the brand had gained both in terms of recall and recognition. What do you have to say Mr Mike Hodd? To that Hodd reacted: Everybody understands that paper is a paper is a paper. This statement is true for all classes of papers we make. Once the packaging is removed the identity of the paper is lost. One brand cannot be set apart from the other. This is a big constraint. I wanted to make sure that our paper develops into a brand. And one of the ways to achieve this was to create corporate brand with high recognition and recall. Our company brand can be fine method of achieving this. Therefore we had run multi million rupee campaigns to teach people to differentiate the paper by knowing who makes it. Our campaign was widely appreciated both by experts and ordinary people. I would want to you to remember the sales boost that we achieved during the course of the campaign. Since we could not sustain it the sales began to slide down. In my opinion this is the only way to build a brand in this category. Our life as a paper manufacturer is further compounded by technological developments. The internet penetration, mobile phones, and the invention of other forms of storage devices have further compounded our problems. While Mike Hodd justified his campaign and elaborated upon the reasons of decline JK got visibly upset. His dislike for the arguments which Hodd proposed was palpable. It was a defeatist approach to handling a challenging problem. Before Mike could complete, JK interrupted Mike: 4
You mean to say paper industry is going to vanish in future. The developments in information and communication technology would wipe out existence of company like ours. There is no way you can justify decline. Paper is a growing industry. When car was invented people believed the end of days for horse buggy but we still have carts and horse buggies. In my opinion your strategy actually has been an easy approach to handling a difficult situation. But more disappointing is that you did not even recognize that we have a difficult situation in front of us. The simplistic perception of a complex situation made to adopt a clichéd path to brand building. Just advertising and raise slogans and brand are made. Recall and recognition is first starting point of brand building. Did you ever scrutinize to know what actually you wanted to convey? And whatever you spend millions on was that relevant? If in your own beliefs believe that a paper is a paper then you have lost it. You cannot create brand. Brand is not a known label. It is much more. A paper is what we make but it is not what customers want to buy. The pitch and tone of JK pushed everybody froze everybody in the room. The skin on his forehead shrank only to reveal a complex network of lines. And he stretched the eyes open pushing his pupil outwards. JK seemed to have posed a question to which none seemed to have an answer to! Appendix: Opinions of people in popular media: “The paper industry is likely to grow in future. The usage of paper will continued to be used by people. It is impossible to think of a society completely going paperless. Paper industry is likely come under greater scrutiny on account of ecological concerns. Plastic industry has come under severe critics and is being charged for polluting planets. The governmental response to these concerns has been in the form of enactment of laws against usage of certain kinds of plastics and plastic products. Awareness campaigns dissuade people to minimize if not eliminate use of plastic. It is quite possible that paper may also be subjected to voluntary and imposed responses. Paper industry hugely relies upon forest for procuring its core raw material. Forest and wood availability are critical determinant of the extent to which this industry can grow and prosper.” “Paper is closely tied up with knowledge and education. Economic progress depends upon education and there lies the need for paper of different kinds. When one makes a case for „paperless‟ society, some kind of impossibility is thought of. As long as progress is an aspiration, usage of paper cannot be completely ruled out. It is difficult to envisage a scenario without physical newspaper, note books, printed books, greeting cards, and tissues of various kinds. It is not correct to expect the future to be a lineal extension of past. It may also be foolish to expect the future to be completely divorced of the past. Within change there has to be continuity of thought, things, and institutions. It is here one needs figure out how the this industry would emerge in future.” Facts: Paper industry de-licensed July 1997. It is one of the priority sectors for foreign collaboration and foreign equity participation. The RBI approval is automatic. Various schemes are in place to encourage investments in paper industry using unconventional row materials. This reflects policy priority to encourage new methods and technology to minimize the damage to environment. Currently the industry is made up of about five hundred units which manufacture paper and paper boards. In terms of demand and supply India is almost self sufficient in paper production and consumption. The proportion of paper production based on wood and non wood is close to sixty -forty. 5
