Appeal to Govt to realize the precarious position of Box making industry & bail out sector - SICBMA

Chennai, 5th Jan 2021 : We are glad to introduce our association, South India Corrugated Box Manufacturers Association is the representative body of Corrugated Box manufacturers across Tamilnadu and Pondicherry. For the past 51 years we have been functioning for the welfare of the Box Manufacturers across the state.

Corrugated Box or Carton Box manufacturers are predominately small industries under MSME category. The industry is the key provider of packaging material to Pharma products, FMCG Goods, Food Industry, Automobile Industry,E lectrical Appliances and much more.

Carton box industry is an eco-friendly industry which uses Kraft Paper is as its main raw material. In turn the scrap boxes collected from the market is used as raw material to make Kraft Paper. There about 2000 units with a workforce of nearly 1,00,000 people and in that 60 % are women.

Currently, post the COVID-19 induced lock down, there is a severe scarcity of Kraft Paper and the price of Kraft paper has shot up by 45 %. Kraft paper contributes to 85 % of the carton box cost. Which means that the cost of manufacture of Carton box has risen by 35 %. Being a competitive market and an essential product, the Carton box industry works on a very thin margin and with a 35 % increase in cost of production, most industries are facing the threat of closure.

Being sandwiched between the Carton box consumer, mostly Corporates and Kraft Paper Mills, the MSME units manufacturing Carton box is facing threat of extinction.

Regarding this we request the Government to:

1) Ensure Recyclable waste (Old Carton Box collected from market) used to make Kraft Paper is sent to other states ONLY after fulfilling the needs of Tamilnadu.

2) Ban export of Kraft paper in any form from India. 

Further, we request the box consumers to take note of the situation and provide suitable price increase to the Corrugated Box Manufacturers.

We sincerely hope the Govt, Box Consumers and Kraft Mills will realize the precarious position of the Box making industry and bail them out.

Thanks & Regards,

G Nagaraj

President

SICBMA

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