Opinion: The Indian paper industry’s real challenge

The prevailing concern within India’s paper manufacturing sector is the chronic issue of low domestic demand, which forces mills into partial shutdowns to manage supply and rates. The initial question is often: How do we increase demand? The answer, however, lies not in trying to artificially generate consumption but in a radical, data-driven transformation of operations to improve quality and reduce costs.

The core challenge facing Indian mills is deeply ingrained operational inefficiency, driven by what experts term the "cost of fear."

When PrintWeek spoke with tech experts from the paper fraternity, they said this is a hidden expense incurred by conservative, non-data-driven practices. Typically, this is over-processing. This means increasing rejects to marginally reduce specks, applying excessive vacuum for minor dryness gains, or overdosing on chemicals — all to safeguard against poor quality.

Another red flag is wastage. These fear-based practices escalate energy, chemical, maintenance, and yield losses without delivering proportional quality benefits. As one industry veteran noted, the "cost of fear of poor quality" is often more significant than the "cost of poor quality" itself.

The pathway to sustainable growth requires moving from this defensive mindset to one of redefining operational benchmarks across the entire value chain.

The industry must focus on systemic efficiency to produce competitive quality paper at a lower manufacturing cost, thereby reducing reliance on imports and naturally increasing effective domestic demand.

This includes optimising yield. A mere 2-5% increase in pulp yield for integrated mills can lead to significant benefits, including a 13-15% jump in production capacity, and substantial reductions in consumption of raw materials, power, water, and coal.

Deployment of precision and data: This means utilisation of real-time data and process capability measures to identify and reduce variation, rather than simply shifting averages, is essential. Crucially, this data analysis must be filtered through domain knowledge to avoid disastrous, non-scalable lab-based conclusions.

Capturing waste energy includes simple measures, such as controlling silo water temperature (a critical factor for paper machine efficiency in winter) through efficient heat recovery from sources like the hood exhaust or turbo blower, which can yield significant savings in steam and energy consumption.

The ultimate solution for the Indian paper industry is not a demand strategy, but a quality and cost strategy. By confronting the systemic waste and operational inefficiencies and making a collective commitment to producing world-class products at a competitive price, the industry can create a strong market entry barrier for competitors and secure its long-term future.

This transformation requires collaboration, a willingness to change entrenched processes, and a shared vision to become a global leader. Till such times, some Indian paper mills must run partial shutdowns in order to control supply and rates, as a consequence of low Indian paper demand.