Plastic processing industry witnesses boom in NE region

From our Correspondent

TINSUKIA, May 24:  In a bid to boost the plastic processing industry across the north-eastern part of India, a high-level government delegation has been on a visit to various potential locations of the Northeast interacting with local entrepreneurs on possible fronts.

A similar interactive session was conducted in Tinsukia on Sunday. It was conducted jointly by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & industry (FICCI) and Brahmaputra Cracker and Polymer Limited (BCPL) and local entrepreneurs and like-minded people from across Assam participated in order to promote plastic industry and its allied sectors.

Meanwhile, Surajit K Chaudhury, the Secretary, Chemical and Petroleum, Ministry of Chemical and Fertilizers, Government of India, who has been leading the delegation to the three States of Meghalaya, Manipur and Assam, said while addressing the house that ‘the average per capita consumption of petrochemical in India is 8.759 kg whereas in the Northeast it is only 3.75 kg’. This, he said underlined the tremendous potentiality of Assam and the north-eastern region for the development of the said industry.

Accompanied by representatives of the Ministry of MSME, Ministry of DONER Maging Director of BCPL and FICCI,  Chaudhary remarked, “The Centre is focused on generation of 1 lakh jobs in the region through the development of plastic industry.”

BCPL, a CPSE under the administrative control of Department of Chemical & Petrochemical, Government of India, is executing a major gas cracker project in the Northeast. The project is likely to be commissioned by June, 2016 and would have the capacity of 220,000 tons per annum TPA of polyethylene and 60,000 tons per annum TPA of Polypropylene. The BCPL plant which is likely to benefit the entire region, is mechanically completed and would be commissioned by 2015 entailing Rs 10, 000 crore budget allotted by the Union Government.

P N Prasad, the MD of BCPL, while motivating and urging the entrepreneurs in the region to come forward and take initiatives to invest in the plastic industry, said, “ As on date the overall physical process of the project achieved is 99.74 per cent.”

While talking to The Sentinel in this context, Biswajit Chakraborty, the Head FICCI North East, said that the demand for plastic had been growing rapidly at 10 per cent CAGR over the last few years. “As such to capitalize and further enhance the growth, a special thrust is being laid on manufacturing and infrastructure which are but imperative for job creation and inclusive development,” he said. According to him, the NE region also consumes a wide range of plastic /polymer products and in contrast the penetration level of the products in the region is much less as compared to the tiol level.

Dignitaries like Puru Gupta, the Deputy Commissioner of Tinsukia, Swapnil Barua, the Commissioner Industries, Assam, Ibotomba Singh, the Chief Mager of Central Institute of Plastic Engineering and Technology (CIPET), OP Tailor, Director (F) BCPL and B Sinha, DGM (PC Marketting), GAIL attended the programme.