Lokmat goes the green way to produce newspaper

Mumbai-based Lokmat Media, the publisher of the largest Marathi daily Lokmat, has taken up environment-friendly initiatives to produce its paper the green way. Neeraj Mahajan, vice-president, technical, Lokmat, explained these initiatives during his presentation at the Wan-Ifra conference in Mumbai on 4 September 2015.

05 Sep 2015 | By Rahul Kumar

Lokmat uses renewable energy, and chemistry-free plates to minimise the use of water and use of non-recyclable liquids. The company uses 70% domestic newsprint and 30% of it is imported.
 
“We use recycled products and we prefer to reuse our materials and reduce the consumption of electricity and water. Thus, we can help ourselves sustain,” Mahajan said. “So, our mantra is, recycle, reuse and reduce.”
 
The company has 12 print production plants spread accords Maharashtra. With a circulation of 18 lakh copies in Maharashtra and Goa, they have a major chunk of the market to themselves. The newspaper also has editions in Indore in Madhya Pradesh and Belgaum in Karnataka.
 
Lokmat’s production plants are equipped with solar energy and they use maximum daylight to reduce the consumption of electricity. Mahajan said recently there was a hike of 40 paise per unit in electricity charges, yet the electricity bill has gone up just 20%. “We have shifted to LED from traditional bulbs,” he said.
 
The company is also shifting towards solar energy in a big way. “We have saved more than Rs 3 lakh in the last six months on electricity after installing solar panels on our plants,” he said. He added that mounting the solar panels was a challenge because they had to decide whether they wanted to mount it on the roof or on the ground. 
 
Mahajan also raised the point that the government and its related authorities are not raising enough awareness about solar energy. “With the installation of the solar panels, we will be getting our return on investment in the next 66 months, and after that electricity is free for almost 19 years,” he said.
 
To save water, the newspaper group uses chemistry-free plates. Mahajan said, right now 50% of the company’s full consumption is green and by the end of this year, it is planning to use 100% chemistry-free plates. “No chemistry means no water and low consumption of electricity. This means it has benefits from all sides,” he concluded.