The jute and plastics bodies made presentations before the Standing Advisory Committee (SAC). The SAC decision will go to all the government departments and then to the CCEA for ratification.
Fearing the SAC's possible decision favouring partial dilution of the JPMA 1987, the Indian Jute Manufacturers Association (IJMA) has decided to approach all the West Bengal MPs as well as Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. The jute body is seeking to maintain a 100 per cent reservation for sugar and foodgrain packaging.
West Bengal accounts for more than 85 per cent of the jute production in the country.
A SAC meeting chaired by Union Textiles Secretary A K Singh favoured the dilution of jute reservation norms by 30 per cent for grains and by 25 per cent for sugar. According to government and industry sources, the committee in all likelihood will support dilution of JPMA norms next week.
The SAC meeting was attended by the representatives of the All India Flat Tape Manufacturers' Association (AIFTMA), Chemicals & Petrochemicals Manufacturers' Association, Cooperative Sugar Mills Association, Consumer Association of India, apart from the Food & Civil Supply Corporation, Government of India and Punjab. All the stakeholders have supported the need for dilution of the compulsory packaging norm, claimed K D Agarwal, president, AIFTMA.
"We are not asking for reservation in favour of plastic packaging. The consumer should be free to exercise his choice to buy either plastic, jute, cotton or paper packaging," Agarwal said.
On the other hand, Sanjay Kajaria, chairman, IJMA, said the jute industry would suffer a loss of Rs 15,00 0 crore if the compulsory norms were diluted. Ghanshyam Sarda, a jute mills owner in WB, said in the absence of a monitoring agency to oversee the observance of packaging norms, the dilution would ring a death knell for the industry.
They fear that with diluted norms, around 70 per cent of foodgrains and 75 per cent sugar packaging would be done in plastic instead of gunny bags.
Again, the plastics lobby fears that the SAC recommendations once sent to government departments for approval may meet the same fate as last year and not get eventually enforced by CCEA. The last year's SAC recommendations to phase out the use of jute bags was not enforced by the CCEA and the 100 per cent reservation in favour of jute packaging was retained.
Opposing the jute industry, IIFTMA and CPMA are planning to take the issue of dilution to the Union chemicals & petrochemicals ministry which is concerned over increasing the per capita consumption of plastics in the country from 4.5 kg to 10 kg by 2012. The JPMA is a major roadblock to increasing plastics consumption in the country, feels Agarwal.
IIFTMA has pegged the losses incurred by consumers on account of compulsory jute packaging to be around Rs 1,100 crore per year on account of price differences between jute and high density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP) sacks.
