People And Their Problems

New Delhi, 2 June 2007

India’s Paper Industry

SCARCE RAW MATERIAL PROBLEM

By Radhakrsihna Rao

India’s fast-growing paper industry, which is ranked as the 15^th largest in the world, has for many years now been saddled with the problem of sky rocketing prices of raw materials on account of their dwindling availability within the country.

Rapidly depleting stock of bamboo forests in the country due to severe ecological disturbances is considered a major factor behind the declining availability of raw materials for the industry which employs around 1.3 million people.

The demand for paper products in the Indian market is on a steady upward curve. And to meet the growing demand for paper products the Indian paper industry has now launched a high profile expansion and modernization plan.

Worried over the not-so-rosy prospects on the raw materials front, the Indian Paper Manufacturers’ Association (IPMA) has come out with a proposal of tripartite association between the land owner, land user and the paper producer to ensure a steady supply of raw materials. As per the policy proposal of IPMA, the land holding size will be in the range of 5-50 hectares and will be given on a lease of upto 30 years through a process of competitive bidding. And it is envisaged that the revenue from crops will be shared between the stakeholders. Against this backdrop, the IPMA has sought 1-1.5 million hectares of degraded land near paper mills for raising plantations meant to meet the raw materials need of the industry. 

The IPMA sources drive home the point that apart from improving the forest cover in India, this arrangement would help generate employment opportunities in rural areas of the country. This proposal which has already been cleared by the Union Ministry of Forests and Environment is awaiting the nod of the Indian Cabinet.

Of course, for quite sometime now the Indian paper industry, which has been growing at the rate of 6 per cent, finding it difficult to source bamboo and pulp whose prices in the international market have zoomed to new heights. As an industry insider says, international pulp prices have jumped by about 7% last year from US$560 a tonne to $600 now, forcing the paper producers jack up the prices of their products by an average of Rs.2,000 a tonne.

India’s top ranking paper manufacturing enterprise, the Bilt, in addition to expanding its farm forestry operations has bought Sabha Forest industries in Malaysia to ensure that the shortage of pulp together with its rising prices does not have a constraining effect on the expansion plan of the company.

In South-East Asian countries such as Malaysia and Thailand, the Government allows private companies to grow plantations for pulp manufacturing. However, the Government policy in India does not allow forest plantations for pulp manufacturing. So the companies are forced to depend on market sources to meet their wood requirements, says B. Hariharan, Group Financial Director of the Bilt.

Meanwhile, the paper industry sources in India say that in view of the shortage of wood-based pulp, share of the agro wastes in paper production would go up to a substantial extent in the years ahead. Interestingly, since 1970, the share of wood as a raw material in India’s paper production has declined from 84% to 36%. On the other hand, the share of agro residue and waste paper in India’s paper production matrix has increased from 9% and 7% to 29% and 35% respectively. 

As observed by R.R. Vederah, Managing Director of the Bilt, “the share of recycled paper would go up for companies such as the Bilt, West Coast Paper Mills and JK Paper, which are undertaking demonstration of better management practices through the increased use of high yielding, clonal plantations across the large part of the country to ensure better yields as part of their farm forestry operations.”.

On the other hand, V. Kumaraswamy, Vice-President (Finance) of JK Paper says, “the industry has already moved from a five year plantation cycle to a three-year cycle. Effort is on to make it a one year cycle. Once it is achieved, farmers will not hesitate to turn to plantations. It would fetch them revenues on an annual basis like any other crop”.

The need of the hour for the Indian paper mills is not only to expand the captive farm forestry schemes but also to diversity their technological base, so as to accommodate a wide range of feedstocks. However, as things stand now, Indian paper mills use just around 10% of an estimated 5.5 million tonnes of baggasse---a sugarcane waste---generated in India annually. 

However, in the context of pollution and raw materials scarcity nagging India’s paper and pulp sector, Indian paper companies have been focusing on enhancing their captive raw materials supplies and building capacities in a bid to offset the tougher operating environment. For instance, Amrit Banaspati Company Ltd located near Hoshiarpur in Punjab is giving an increasing thrust to using farm residues as an input for paper manufacturing. Simultaneously, the capacity of its in-house husk-based captive power plant would be enhanced from 9 MW to 12 MW to support the increased manufacturing capacity.

Meanwhile, a number of leading paper mills are busy implementing their modernization and expansion plan with a focus on “cleaner production technology and use of diversified feedstock”. The Government-owned Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Paper Ltd. (TNPL) has drawn up an ambitious expansion plan to boost its production capacity from 2.3 lakh tonne per year to 3.65 lakh tonne a year with an investment of Rs.6,500 million by installing a new paper mill which will be operational by 2009-10. The TNPL is focussing on exploiting the growth in the branded copier paper and note book segments with a view to improving its margin over a period of time.

Incidentally, the TNPL which has set up an effluent treatment plant based on activated sludge process, claimed to be the best in the country, makes available treated water to irrigate 1,500 acres of farmland in the vicinity of the mill. On the other hand, the Government of India-owned Hindustan Paper Corporation (HPC) says that as part of its eco-friendly production strategy it has realized a zero disposal of solid waste.

However, for the medium and smaller paper companies in India, resources crunch would prove to be a major hindrance in going in for “greener and cleaner production technologies”. As such, it is suggested that such paper mills should be provided support by the Government through part-funding of a common facility for treating effluents.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

People And Their Problems

New Delhi, 26 May 2007

Need For 20-Year Vision

INDIA’S POTENTIAL FOR MEDICAL TOURISM

By Radhakrishna Rao

About a couple of decades back, affluent Indians suffering from a variety of afflictions going for high-end medical treatment in the corporate and elite hospitals of North America and West Europe  was quite common. However, with the massive and rapid upgradation of the Indian-healthcare infrastructure over the last one decade, patients from across the world, including the USA and the UK, find the medicare facilities in India not only of high quality but also quite inexpensive in comparison to the facilities available in their countries. No wonder then that a recent projection points out that medical tourism in India could well become a Rs.7,000 crore enterprise by 2012.

As pointed out by Dr.Naresh Trehan, a renowned Cardiac surgeon: “Life saving healthcare is just one of the many comparative advantages India has. Today the entire SAARC region, Afghanistan and CIS countries look at India as a destination for cardiology, orthopedics, cosmetic surgery, eye care and dentistry.” It has been estimated that about one-fourth of the patients in the leading corporate hospitals of India are from abroad.

”Foreign patients are very particular about the ambience and environment of the hospital. They expect a different type of service” observes Dr.Devi Shetty, the founder of the Bangalore-based super-speciality heartcare hospital, Narayana Hrudyalaya. Interestingly, this hospital has become a favourite of many heart patients of Pakistani origin. Shetty believes that in years ahead a lot more patients from the USA and Europe would come to Bangalore, specifically for high quality treatment at a very affordable cost. Interestingly, Naryana Hrudaylalya has so far treated close to 400 Pakistanis suffering from cardiac complications.

In order to turn Bangalore, known for its IT enterprise and high-tech industry, into a favourite hub of medical tourism, the Health and Family Welfare Department of the State plans to promote the concept of “health clubs” that cater specifically to foreign patients. According to sources in the Karnataka Government, the major attraction which Bangalore holds in so far as the  medical tourism is concerned is  the reputation it has already built up for low cost medical treatment, expertise and infrastructure which are of international standards. As an analyst of the Indian healthcare industry puts it, medical tourism has become a veritable talisman attracting big money from the industry. That Reliance and Tatas have their own plans to enter the medical tourism sector holds the mirror to the tremendous potentials of the sector.

Vishal Bali, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Wockhardt, a leading name in India’s high quality healthcare sector, is clear in his perception that India should be ready and  prepared to take up the challenges involved in medical tourism. Bali, a staunch votary of medical tourism, drives home the point that the presence of more than 60 million  with no insurance cover in the US, overburdened National Health Service in the United Kingdom and an increasingly graying population in the West at the opportunities that the Indian medicare industry easily exploit to sustain the growth  of the medical tourism.

On his part, Bali is of view that if India can attract patients from the USA and the UK, it could attract patients from any part of the world without any problem. By all means, the trump card of the medical tourism in the Indian context is low cost and high quality of treatment.

Rightly and appropriately, Trehan sees the possibility of Indian health insurance companies taking a plunge into medical tourism sector in a big way. “Very soon, you will see insurers offering policies to overseas citizens that would help them take advantage of the medical treatment in India”, quips Trehan. Interestingly, a  recent, fact filled study carried out  by Federation of  Indian Chamber of  Commerce and Industry in association with Ernst and Young says, “a cardiac procedure costs anywhere between US$ 40,000-60,000 in the USA, US$ 30,000 in Singapore. But in India it costs just US$3000-6000”.

Another advantage enjoyed by the Indian healthcare industry is the rapid expansion of the satellite-based telemedicine network introduced by the Indian Space Research Organisation. Telemedicine network enables remote diagnosis and treatment. For instance, Narayana Hrudayalaya operates a telemedicine network that makes it possible smooth monitoring of the conditions of the patients spread across many countries around the world.

A study by the Healthcare Services Division of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Indian hospitals and medicare centres are now mainly frequented by patients from South Asian countries, West Asia, the United Kingdom, East Africa and Uzbekistan. And  in recent months patients from New Zeland and Australia have been finding India an ideal destination for getting treated at a very affordable cost. And as envisaged now, medical tourism which is expected to grow at the rate of 20 per cent per annum, could very well become a major foreign exchange earner for India.

Though at the moment, India lags behind Thailand, Singapore and Israel in terms of general  infrastructure and the number of health tourists, with some find tuning, improved coordination and better image building, India would well emerge as one of the most preferred destinations of medical tourism in the economically booming Asia Pacific region.

“Popular healthcare tourism destinations such as Thailand and Singapore, first promoted their tourism potential and then healthcare tourism. India is doing both simultaneously which would take sometime to work”, says Sajal Dutta, President of Association of Hospitals of Eastern India (AHEI). 

On another front, the ancient Indian medicare system of ayurveda too is becoming a major component of medical tourism in India. In fact, much before the concept of medical tourism took off, a large number of westerns keen on getting rejuvenation therapies based on ayurvedic principles used to visit one of the many ayurvedic resorts dotting the evergreen State of Kerala.

Indeed as observed by Dr.Issac Mathai, Chairman of Saukya, a holistic healthcare centre focusing on yoga and ayurveda, “We need a bigger vision for the next 15-20 years rather than focussing on current issues. It could be an integrated facility, ranging from super-speciality to yoga, research and even IT (Information Technology) and BT (Biotechnology) research related to medicare”.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

People And Their Problems

New Delhi, 19 May 2007

 Gloom On The Mankind

CLIMATE CHANGE INDIA’S GRAVE CONCERN

By Dr. P. K. Vasudeva

The signs of global climate change are clear: melting glaciers, earlier blooms and rising temperatures. In fact, 11 of the past 12 years rank among the hottest ever recorded by the scientists and diplomats of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) who issued their long-anticipated warning in a report in February.  The report suggests ways by which countries can stop the already worsening conditions. Fighting global warming has to become a world-wide movement, warns IPCC before 2030, the time by which the gloom on the mankind may befall if the green house effects are not controlled globally.

India is faced with grave concern following melting glaciers, change in rainfall pattern, falling food production, rising sea level and other climate changes due to global warming, say experts. According to Achim Steiner, Chief of the United Nations Environment Programme, global warming should be seen as a security issue as well as shortage of water and fertile land may lead to conflicts in the next 10 to 20 years. 

India is particularly vulnerable, Steiner said, adding that global warming will cause the Himalayan glaciers to melt. This will lead to mass migration and possible conflicts over valuable resources such as agricultural land and fresh water. As the heat-trapping gases warm the atmosphere, glaciers melt at a faster rate, sea levels are pushed up, and the consequences are as diverse as drought, flooding, violent storms and increased hunger, diseases and deaths.

In the next couple of decades, the Himalayan glacier can shrink to a fifth of its present size of 500,000 sq kilometers and many others, including the ones feeding the Ganges, can disappear, if the current pace of global warming persists.

Actually, thousands of Himalayan glaciers are shriveling up in varying degrees. Gangotri glacier is receding by 25 meters a year, Pindari glacier by 23 meters, Dokriani by 18 meters, Bera Shingri by 36 meters, Meola by 36 meters, Sona Pani by 17 meters, Milam by 13 meters, Zemu by 28 meters a year to name a few. Cumulatively, this melt could change the way we know our world. If global warming is not arrested, rivers will first flood and then dry up; seas will rise and fertile lands will turn dry.

The devastating impact of melting snows, rising seas and drying rivers is virtually upon us. Within the lifetime of many of us, the Ganges could be a pale shadow of its current glory; shoreline cities and town and, including Mumbai, could be compelled to build dykes to keep out the invading seas; agricultural yield in the fecund Gangetic plains could become insufficient to feed our one billion populations, unless we act now.

Here is how the disaster scenario could pan out. As temperatures rise due to global warming on account of increased pollutants in the atmosphere, glaciers will melt faster and receive less snowfall. The snowfall in the upper reaches of glacier adds weight on top, and the pace of melt at its mouth creates a delicate balance, keeping the ice mass in place. When this balance is upset, the glacier either recedes or comes forward dramatically or simply bursts resulting in the serious calamity.

This calls for consensus, lifestyle changes and innovative technologies. The first may be elusive but lifestyle changes can be people's initiatives such as curbing the compulsion to excessively heat/cool homes, or avoiding long commutes. Happily, technological solutions are already appearing — for instance, the Compact Fluorescent Lamp that saves energy, or the hybrid vehicle that could change the transport sector's image of being a major polluter.

More importantly, such clean technologies, created usually by the West, must be freely made available to the developing world. The West must not baulk at this but see it as repentance for past sins against nature. All this requires political will to implement them.

This assessment must be taken very seriously in India. There should be a drastic shift from fossil fuels like coal and oil. As a country we have to choose our own pathways and develop and start using energy efficient technologies well within our means. More important, there should be a political will to discuss and resolve the issue. Every citizen has to be made aware of the effects of global warming and a course of action drawn out right from the primary school levels.

The issue has to catch the attention of the common people especially rural poor whose day to day life depends on the wood from the jungles for cooking, warming, survival and even the cremation after death. The depletion of forests that is deforestation should be ruthlessly curbed and aforestation encouraged at all levels. Introduction of good public transportation system can control vehicle pollution to quite an extent.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

People And Their Problems

New Delhi, 10 May 2007

Despite Vigorous Efforts…

SLOW PROGRESS IN COMBATING MALARIA

By Radhakrishna Rao

For more than two decades now vigorous and widespread efforts have been on to devise an effective and comprehensive vaccine to combat the emaciating disease of malaria which has become a major public health problem in India and many third world countries. It has been estimated that as many as one million people get killed every year by malaria and the continent of Africa accounts for around 90% of the deaths due to malaria.

Ecological devastation and poverty accentuated by wars have contributed in a big way to the spread of malaria in Africa. The disaster is already a big killer of children in the impoverished sub-Saharan Africa. It has also been estimated that one in three in the world is vulnerable to malarial infection.

“Sadly we say that though research is going to find remedies to combat malaria, we are unable to develop a vaccine to date. The only treatment we have is in the form of drug. We hope to develop a vaccine in the next decade”, says Dr.S.Padmanabhan, a well-known researcher from the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science (IISC). Significantly, though a number of vaccines meant to provide protection against malaria are under various stages of development, testing and trial, none of them has been cleared for a regular and routine use.

Meanwhile, a malarial vaccine developed by the drug giant Glaxosmithkline Biologicals has shown good results during the clinical trials carried out in Mozambique. Monitoring of the children who were given three dose regime of the vaccine showed that that they were protected for 18 months. But then as pointed out by a spokesman of the company “several years of clinical investigation will be needed before this vaccine is ready for licensing”.

On the other hand, Dr.Melinda Morse, Director of Path MVI created with the objective of overcoming the barriers in the malarial vaccine development has this to say, “The ability of this vaccine to protect children from severe malaria for at least 18 months makes it a very promising, potential public check tool for the developing world”.

In an yet another development of significance, a team of French scientists at Pasteur Institute under the leadership of Prof.Pierre Drulhe has reported about  the trials of a malarial vaccine that  drugs and bednets to mimics the natural immunity some people develop against the disease. But the biggest problem associated with a malarial vaccine is that the antigen a vaccine could target may vary depending on what stage the parasite is at in its life cycle. Clearly and apparently, this implies that a single vaccine might not work against all strains all strains of the disease causing germ.

In a related development, studies carried out by the Biochemistry department of IISc have revealed that the inhibitor Geldanomycin could be used to combat malaria. According to IISc researcher Utpal Taty, the discovery is the outcome of the study on the growth malarial parasite plasmodium falciparum on patients suffering from malaria.

Incidentally, of the four malarial parasites, Plasmodium facliparum is by far the most dangerous, especially to undernourished, weak or young. In fact, the strategy to control malarial also depends on safe water, efficient public health facilities, education, supply of latest genre drugs and bednets to the people vulnerable to malarial infection. Not surprisingly, malaria is considered a disease of poverty and cause of poverty. In recent years, there has been a steady resurgence in malarial incidence in India and the States like Karnataka, Orissa and hilly north-eastern region have been reporting an increasing number of malarial cases.

On the other hand, urban centres like Mumbai and Goa too have been reporting a spurt in malarial cases mainly due to the migration of people from various parts of the country. In 1998, WHO Director General Dr.Gro Harlem Brundtland had announced a strategy to substantially reduce the cases of malaria by 2010.

Indeed, in the Indian context, the proliferation of slums and shanty towns in the urban centres of the country has contributed in a big way to the explosive spread of the disease. In fact, the conventional method of monitoring the potential breeding ground of the disease causing mosquito strains across the Indian urban sprawl has become a cumbersome exercise in terms of money and time.

As such, the New Delhi-based Malarial Research Cetnre (MRC) has been making use of the data made available by a string of earth observation and weather monitoring satellites to map the potential malariogenic areas in the country. In the long run, the repeated observation from space over a period of time can provide comparable data which will add to the malarial eradication measures.

But the grim ground reality is that in recent years, the malarial control programme in India and in other parts of the world has run into difficulties owing to the disease causing parasites fast developing resistance to the once potent anti-malarial drugs and the mosquito strains spreading the disease developing resistance to a range of hitherto potent pesticides.

According to Arata Kochi, WHO’s Head of malaria, “our biggest concern right now is to treat patients with safe and effective medication to avoid the problem of drug resistance”. Kochi also drives home the point that “if we lose ACTS (artemisinen combination therapy) we will no longer have a cure for malaria and it will probably be at least ten years before a new one can be discovered”.

The drug resistance is now a major problem in the fight against malaria, say the WHO sources. For instance, sulfa doxine pyrimthanine, which was one hundred per cent effective about two decades back, has now lost much of its efficacy and punch. As pointed out by Kochi, “so far no treatment failures due to artemisine drug resistance have been documented, but we are watching the situation very carefully”.

Meanwhile, researchers working on devising new and novel strategies to combat malaria are veering round the view that climatic fluctuations could be used to predict the spread of malaria. Researchers are confident that the system which is based on computer models of climate change can predict outbreaks upto five months in advance.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)