Industrialists of Kanpur are fast turning to coal and wood to offset the inflationary effect of the spiralling petroleum prices on their products.
The unprecedented hike in crude oil prices in the international market has led to increase in production cost of goods like chemicals, fuel oil etc. in the past few months.
The manufacturers say that using coal and wood as fuel proves to be up to 60 per cent cheaper than conventional oil fuels. The boilers which were being run by petroleum oils have been redesigned to work on coal and firewood or both.
Anil Pandey, who owns a polyester yarn manufacturing plant in Panki, told Business Standard that operating the boiler to produce one kilogram of product costs around Rs 10, while use of coal reduces it dramatically to mere Rs 2. The plant manufactures polyester filling mats used in cloth weaving.
The use of alternative solid fuels has led to decline in use of petrol by 8 per cent and diesel by 5 per cent as compared to last year. The consumption of petrol and diesel has reduced in past few months according to B D Aggrawal, who runs a petrol pump in Mall Road area of the city.
“We sold 40 kilolitres of petrol and 160 kilolitres of diesel last month, while our sale has dropped by around Rs 7.5 lakh this month,” says Aggrawal.
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A number of industrialists are also searching for other alternative fuels like zatropha oil and manufacture of fuel oil from low quality coal. The manufacturers are also using waste of sugarcane and rice husk to run the boilers.
The use of solid fuel in the boilers was discontinued following directions from pollution control board. Now, these have been fitted with carbon converters and filters, which prevent the disposal of harmful gases and unburnt carbon into the open air.
Bharat Bhushan Chawla, a namkeen manufacturer, says that the snacks manufacturers have set up new boilers which run on solid fuel and prove up to 50 per cent cost effective than the oil fuels. He also added that the spent ash left after the burn process is further being used for making bricks etc.
The footwear manufacturing companies like Rupani Footwear and Tirubala Exports are also planning to switch to boilers run by coal and wood to increase their profit margin.