City of plastics

What do Injecto Plast, a unit of the Kanpur-based Lohia Starlinger group, Netplast, a supplier to a number of two wheeler manufacturers, and Kanpur Plastipack, a major exporter of flexible intermediate bulk containers, have in common? They are all producers of plastic products "" and all are located in Kanpur.

To be sure, Kanpur is an unusual site to locate a plastics business. It has no source of raw material in the vicinity or anything else that would help a plastics industry to flourish, apart from skilled manpower, regularly trained at ITIs and at CIPET in Lucknow.

But over the last 30 years, entrepreneurs have created a formidable industry here. Kanpur is now home to some 400 small and medium-sized plastics units, which directly employ about 10,000 people and produce an estimated Rs 500 crore worth of plastics and plastics products every year, according to R K Agarwal, managing director of Netplast, which manufactures plastic automotive components. That figure may be an underestimate "" substantial production and turnover go unreported.

Indeed, Kanpur is north India's largest hub of plastics products manufacture in northern India.

Kanpur has always been a mandi, a wholesale market hub to which people in Uttar Pradesh, mostly from eastern, central and southern UP, flocked to buy goods. The city catered to the requirements of the hinterland. So were born units that turned out household goods like cans and mugs.

Then in the 1970s, the Food Corporation of India required bleached tarpaulins for food stocks. These were brought in from Gujarat and Nepal and then laminated and sold. Local businessmen who did this made huge profits.

But in the process, a lamination industry developed, explains Manoj Agarwal, executive director at Kanpur Plastipack, a pioneer in the city's woven sack industry.

Businessmen also soon began turning out high density polyethelene (HDPE) pipes to replace galvanised pipes for agricultural use. Next came ICI which established a fertiliser factory in Kanpur in 1968 (ICI later sold it to Duncan Industries). ICI wanted woven sack bags, not jute bags. So the demand for woven sacks bags shot up, leading to the establishment of the woven sack industry.

In the early 1980s, the LML scooter factory was set up in the city, resulting gradually in local businessmen focusing on the producttion of plastic products for two wheelers. So an engineering plastics industry was born. Other plastic component companies to cater to the automobile industry too sprouted, including Netplast, Sutlej Engineering and Krishna Plastics and a host of other engineering firms.

Auto component suppliers apart, Kothari Products, the makers of Pan Parag, spawned another business "" the establishment of producers of multi-layer plastic pouches whose inner layer is impermeable.

It has also to be recognised that manufacturers in the city supply tarpaulins and other plastic goods used by the defence services.

Last but not least, several companies shifted from Mumbai to the city. Among them are Supreme Industries with its range of furniture, and Neelkamal Plastics with its crates.

More recently, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) invited invited over 100 entreprenuers and showcased their products and their reqirements. This is viewed as a most encouraging development for the industry's future.

Agarwal of Netplast points out that the industry doesn't buy technology from outside. "Earlier, for small problems we used to go to Taiwan and South Korea for designing and to make a die. But that is all in the past. Now enteprenuers are making their own dies and their own design outfits," says he.

While some companies seek Taiwanese collaborations, two major city-based engineering institutions, HBTI and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, help the industry. HBTI has a full-fledged plastics department, IIT can test protoypes and has excellent rapid prototyping facilities.

For all this, however, Kanpur's plastics producers grumble that the city's infrastructure is poor. Woven sack units like Kanpur Plastipack export their products, as do autocomponent makers like Injectoplast.

But with the city's appalling road conditions, they can't bring foreign buyers to their factories. Will the state government do anything to improve Kanpur's infrastructure? Over to Mulayam Singh Yadav.