Hind Paper to treble sales by 2012

Kolkata: India’s third largest paper company Hindustan Paper Corporation (HPC) today said that it was aiming to achieve a sales turnover of over Rs 3,000 crore by 2012 on the back of installed capacity of 800,000 tons per annum (tpa) of paper and newsprint against sales of Rs 1101 crore and capacity of 300,000tpa now.

HPC has three large integrated mills in Assam, one called Nagaon Paper Mill (NPM) at Jagiroad in Morigaon district, and the other called Cachar Paper Mill (CPM) at Panchgram in Hailakandi district, plus a third mill in Kerala as a wholly owned subsidiary called Hindustan Newsprint Limited (HNL) at Newsprint Nagar in Kottayam district.

Each mill had installed production capacity of 100,000tpa.

HNL was in the midst of a expansion-cum-diversification project (EDP) to production capacity of 170,000tpa finer papers.

HPC Assam units were executing a modernisation and technological upgradation plan (MTUP) to improve process technology and equipment into environment-friendly, energy-efficient and resource-conserving modes.

In a parallel move, HPC was undertaking the revival and upgradation of Nagaland Pulp & Paper Company (NPPC) at Tuli in Mokokchung district of Nagaland, a mill closed since October 1992.

With the BIFR sanctioning the rehabilitation package, work at NPPC started on June 27 and was due for completion by September 2009.

HPC was doing preparatory work for establishing a large capacity mill in Uttar Pradesh in full swing.

NPM and CPM manufactured printing and writing paper primarily for the mass consumption segments from virgin fibre sourced from locally available bamboo, while HNL produced newsprint comparable in mechanical optical and surface properties to imported newsprint.

HNL used two-third virgin fibre sourced from locally available bamboo, reed and pulpwood species like eucalyptus, casuarinas and acacia, and one-third recycled fibre from old magazines, old newspapers and mixed indigenous and imported wastes.