Focus Our Energy And Create Value

RETHINKING THE COPIER PAPER MARKET, JK PAPER’S A S MEHTA HAS IMPROVED CAPACITY, WIDENED RAW MATERIAL SECURITY, ADDRESSED ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS AND SEEN POSITIVE RESULTS FOR SUPPLIERS.

- Jordan Murray

There are a lot of myths about the industry that JK Paper, one of India’s largest producers of branded copier paper, wants to dispel. There’s the idea that it disturbs ecological balances (“the industry grows more trees through its agro-forestry initiative than it harvests”), that it’s unsustainable (“sources … can be easily regenerated”) and that it strains water and energy resources (“integrated paper mills … generate 60 per cent of the power they use by utilising black liquor from the pulping process”).

One of the biggest myths JK Paper pushes against is the idea that the industry is not scientific or research-based. “Paper mills today are on the cutting edge of scientific research,” says its site.

“Several million clonal or seed rooted saplings are produced in high-yielding, drought-tolerant and disease-resistant nurseries and made available to marginal farmers at subsidised rates for plantation.”

Working with farmers in the Indian states of Gujarat and Maharashtra, JK Paper has invested in these “pioneering efforts” to promote “short rotation pulpwood agro and farm forestry plantations”. “In the past five years, we’ve begun safeguarding our raw materials for our advantage,” explains President and Director A S Mehta. “We analysed the cost of the materials and found that if we could receive a lower price on wood, that would be enough to differentiate us.”

Some of the varieties of trees they have worked on in the past two years are high-yielding clones of eucalyptus, subabul and casuarina, which supply wood productivity at up to four times the rate of the usual rotation age of three years. “Cloned varieties with short maturity and high pulp yield are a winning proposition for farmers as well as our company,” Mehta explains.