India poised to export hand sanitiser bottle dispensers, says govt

India is poised to export hand sanitiser bottle dispensers thanks to interventions by the technology centres and tool rooms under the MSME ministry, the government said on Thursday.

"With help of these initiatives and interventions, country is now not only manufacturing enough hand sanitiser bottle dispensers (pump/flip) for meeting almost all its sharply increased demand but also poised to export the same," the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises said.

The interventions have also helped India in achieving self-sufficiency in hand-sanitising materials (liquid/gel) and have contributed immensely in developing/ producing auxiliary items like masks, face-shields, PPE Kits, sanitiser box, testing facilities etc, it added.

 

During COVID-19, the demand for hand sanitiser and its bottles increased dramatically. Accordingly, the demand for bottle dispenser (pumps) increased manifold (50 lakh per day).

However, the pre-covid manufacturing capacity of bottle dispensers/pumps in the country was at around 5 lakh per day.

To meet the demand, efforts were being made to import lot of dispensers from China.

However, the supply chain from abroad was totally disturbed, which led to huge price rise (Rs 30 per dispenser) for such dispensers in the country, which resulted in the hike of prices of sanitisers in the Indian market.

"Realising this problem, in the beginning of May, 2020, Secretary, MSME held several rounds of meetings with the stakeholders including ministry's officials and tool rooms and technology centres. Meetings were also held with the industry including All India Plastic Manufacturers Association, All India Medical Devices Manufactures Association etc to understand how to ramp up local manufacturing of dispensers," the MSME ministry said.

The private sector was motivated to expand the capacities. However, it was realised that sudden increase in manufacturing is not possible. This situation was because the moulds were not available in the country. So far, the industry was importing moulds also.

The technology centres were motivated to take up this challenge and activity. Seven moulds were required for manufacturing the dispenser components.

The ministry also approved grant for technology centres for purchase of new machinery worth Rs 26 crore for various products.

"Earlier there was ban on export of sanitisers with spray pump, which is now lifted, which means that we are now in a position to export," the ministry said.