Global and Domestic Status of Paper Industry

INTRODUCTION

Introduction to pulp and paper industry

Our lives revolve around the paper as we all know that from the moment we open our eyes in the world and until we living it could not be as orderly without the existence of paper. At present, world is full of digital technology but still papers are use for the official purposes as they are more reliable in compare to e-documents such as in case of contract papers, certificates, books and many more.

Such documents are taken to be as more appreciated and treasured, and taken seriously when received and held tangibly. Papers are not limited here only but they are also used in other form viz. cartons and boxes as packaging and storing stuff. If we see in our daily life routine from our home to office they are used for storing the things that we no longer use for moving in or out and many more. In regular life we can see that food packaging boxes that are capable of holding heat for a longer time are totally made up of paper (www.

the greenbook.com/everyday.uses of paper.html).

So, the main drivers of increasing demand of paper are rapid urbanization, widening spread of education and increasing literacy rate, rising income levels, growing per capita expenditure, better quality packaging requirement for FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Good) products and rising fondness for ready to eat foods. Due to the problem of pollution, use of the plastic for packaging and carrying bags is being curtailed.

Therefore, paper is replacing plastic particularly in carrying bags and packaging. With all these, the domestic demand of paper in India increases with steady pace while demand in western nation is contracting hence, India’s share in global paper demand is growing gradually.

As per CARE Ratings 2018 (CARE Ratings February, 2018), the domestic demand in India grew from 9.3 million tonnes in FY08 to 15.3 million tonnes in FY16 at a CAGR of 6.4%. As per according to the Paperx, 2017, paper imports rises by 28% in India and it has been increasing steadily year after year. In last 6 years, imports have rises at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 15.8% in value terms and 17.6% in volume terms. As per IPMA’s (Indian paper Mill Association), this industry contributes to the exchequer and provides employment to over lakhs of people across. The broad characteristics of the industry are its capital, energy and water intensive (CARE Ratings, 2018).

The type of raw materials used in industry often depends on their geographic location. Most industries located in the northern and western regions of India depend largely on agricultural residues and waste paper while southern and an eastern region depends on wood and bamboo as raw materials. The consumption of wood as a raw material destroying natural habitats as species may become extinct and native communities dwelling in the forest areas are influenced. Deforestation in old forests leads to loss of diversity and may also accelerate global warming (Paperx, 2017; CARE Ratings, 2018).

Each year approximately 400 million metric tons of paper is produced and consumed globally. At present, demand for each person is just over 2 pieces of paper per hour (http://blog.mixerdirect.com/the-top-10-paper-producing-countries-in-the-world). Pulp and paper industry is one of the leading industries in the world. Mainly it is dominated by North American, Northern European and East Asian companies. The top ten dominating countries are Italy, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Brazil, Republic of Korea, Germany, Japan, America and China (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/pulp-and-paper-industry; http://blog.mixerdirect.com/the-top-10-paper-producing-countries-in-the-world).

In paper sector, 2.7 percent growth is estimated in North America while China is expected to better growth with 5.9 percent rise than in comparison to other regions in 2018. Latin America is on pace for 2.4 percent growth in 2018 while Europe can look for an increase in GDP of 1.7 percent (https://paper360.tappi.org/2018/02/28/trendspotting-outlook-2018-pulp-in-a-frenzy/). With this China, The United State and Japan are the three world’s largest paper producing countries and account for approximately half of the world’s total paper production. India accounts for a small but growing share of the global market (CARE Ratings, 2018).

India stood on 15th position among paper manufacturing nations in the world.  India shares 2.6% of global paper manufacture and the sum of capacity is around 12.7 million tonnes. The business is fragmented with over 750 paper mills out of this only 50 mills have a power of 50,000 tonnes per annum (TPA) or more. As regards of production about 72% of the total installed capacity of paper production in India is accounted by West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Orissa, Karnataka, and Maharashtra while Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Kerala, Bihar, and Assam together account for about 26% of the total paper production in India. At present, the domestic paper production is 11.4 million tonnes while the demand is estimated at 13.1 million tonnes per year.

Due of high domestic demand an export of only 0.5 million tonnes and import of 2.2 million tonnes of paper has been done in India in year. The demand is projected to boost to 23.5 million tonnes by 2024- 25. India is the greatest growing market for paper in the world with the growth rate of about 6 percent per year. The increase of per capita paper utilization by one kg will raise the demand by about 1.25 million tonnes per annum. The paper industry in India has to turn into further promising as the domestic demand is on the rise with the increasing population and literacy rate, development in GDP, development in the manufacturing sector and lifestyle of individuals of India. The centre of the paper industry is now shifting towards more eco-friendly goods and technology (http://www.smeventure.com/growth-paper-industry-india/).

The increasing demand of paper brings new challenges in economy of scale efficient usage of resources. This needs to develop and expand sustainable use of fibre and value chain management.

Challenges for pulp and paper industries in India

Since sharp rise of paper price in India during 1973-74, the paper industry was engulfed in crises due to variety of reasons and leading to a sub optimal use of installed capacity (Datt, 2002). Despite of numerous facilities the financial performance of paper mills has been highly unsatisfactory and fiscal concession being provided them. To understand the broad implications, it is necessary to know the problem being confronted by the industry (Reddy, 2003)

Access to cost competitive and quality raw material: The government of India doesn’t permit industrial plantations and that’s why the country is wood fibre deficient country and suffer from inadequate availability of raw material. Due of this reason, Indian industries depends on the import of raw material, pulp, waste material and even pulp wood to meet their raw material necessitate and for this they have to pay premium which affects profitability and capacity addition (CARE Ratings, 2018).

Alternate raw material, non-wood fibre i.e agricultural residue is now acted as a source for paper manufacturing. These residues take less processing time, requires less energy and water and fewer chemicals as in compare to wood pulp. These features make them more sustainable for paper manufacturing as compared to wood fibre. With all these there are some limitations also for non-wood fibre including seasonal availability, problems with chemical recovery, pulp brightness etc. But still it is believed that agro-based paper manufacturing is extremely cost-competitive and highly environmental friendly than wood pulp. Hence lower cost of production could be sustainable competitive advantage for companies (CARE Ratings, 2018).

Due of highly fragmented paper industry in India they are prone to use outdated technology. Resultantly, it is estimated that both the raw material and power consumption are higher as compared to a modern paper mill. Implementation of new technique would lead to increase in productivity, quality improvement with reduced cost, enhancement in energy efficiency, and better fulfilment with environmental protection legislation (CARE Ratings, 2018).

Chemicals are the one of the major cost effective factor in paper making. The degrees of chemical use depend directly or indirectly on the use of raw material and paper making process. There are number of chemicals such as chlorine, sodium chlorate, caustic soda, sodium sulphite, hydrogen peroxide, chlorine dioxide, calcium hypochlorite, ozone and many more are used in pulping and bleaching steps of paper production. The other auxiliary materials such as dyes, starch, clay and resins etc. are used but in relatively in small quantities (CARE Ratings, 2018).

Till 1980, no organisation was involved in research and development of paper industry. To promote R&D in the field of pulp & paper a national level institute named Central Pulp & Paper Research Institute (CPPRI) was established in 1980. This institute is an autonomous body which was established under the administrative control of Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Govt. of India. The origin of CPPRI dates back to the year 1975 when the UNDP-GOI Project became operational. After the conclusion of the UNDP Project, the facilities thus created were utilized to fulfill the long felt need for R&D of Indian Pulp and Paper Industry. Thus, after the approval of the Cabinet, Central Pulp & Paper Research Institute (CPPRI) came into existence in November 1980. CPPRI is committed to develop itself into a premier research institute, with focus on the Pulp & Paper industry both in India and abroad (http://www.cppri.org.in/home-overview).

To develop industry along the right lines and to meet the challenges of future there is lot of ground to be covered in research and pulp wood plantation development.

Some problems faced by Indian Paper industries are poor infrastructure, to many administrative hurdles, poor productivity, poor instruments, lack of commitment to innovation, poor recycling of waste paper, regional barriers, decolourization and detoxification air pollution problems, recovery of chemicals from agro based black liquor etc. (http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/13629/13/13_chapter%203.pdf).

Environmental concern with reference to pulp and paper industry

The increasing demand of paper for better living standards leads to rapid growth of industrialization and resulted in the increase in deforestation as paper is produced from the woody lignocellulosic raw materials. There is huge adverse effects of the production, use and recycling of paper on the environment which are collectively known as paper pollution. The paper industry is one of the most polluted industry as it uses a huge amount of chemicals in general steps of pulp and paper process, including pulping and bleaching which leads to increase in pollution level in paper industry. Pollution from pulp mills contribute in air, water and land pollution. The paper industry releases chlorinated compounds, dioxins, furans and wastewater which contain high level of BOD, COD, and suspended solids too. The solid waste generated through discarding of waste paper is a major component of many land-fill sites, accounting for about 35% by weight of municipal solid waste (before recycling). Even recycling paper is a source of pollution due to the sludge production during deinking. This industry also faces the threatening task of dealing with the emission of non-condensable gases on the atmospheric view. (http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/13629/13/13_chapter%203.pdf).

With so many challenges in the paper industry there is a growing concern around the globe for preserving our forest reserves. The ‘Greenhouse Effect’ has led people to become more alert about the environmental concerns and it has been seen that, in the recent few years various corporations, communities, government agencies and others are coming forward to promote non conventional products and technologies that lead to environment protection and preservation (http://www.ecoindia.com/products/handmade-paper.html).

Since, the pulp and paper industries are categorised as one of the most polluting sector among the others and has been under tremendous pressure to improve pollutant related performance as they have high economic and environmental pressure. Due of these environmental concerns, new eco-friendly technologies, new environmental regulations and consumer activism has to be adopting and in response to this chemical pulping has been dramatically altered (Dhiman et al. 2009; Oriaran, 1990). So, with the increase in awareness about the environment, a new techniques and raw material has to be introduced to minimize the deforestation and pollution level (http://www.ecoindia.com/products/handmade-paper.html).

The overall new strategy needs to be adopted as the old method is no longer effective to treat environment issues. The new strategies include selection of proper process and equipment and utmost segregation of effluents which should be treated selectively. Paper industries in India grow positively in future if it is able to solve the problems related to it. Therefore, the industry has to take all the above stated problems as challenges and try to find out their solution to overcome from these problems and bring back the industry into profitable position. Because of such concern handmade paper industry is seems to be very significant and has been long to contributing in the total production of paper without damaging environment (http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/13629/13/13_chapter%203.pdf).

In comparison to mill paper, recycled fibre or handmade paper are more eco friendly as it reduces air pollution by 70% and produces 90% less wastewater because it requires 50% less energy and consume 75% less water respectively (http://www.ecoindia.com/products/handmade-paper.html).

To meet the challenges of future, the paper industry needs more and more research and development activity.

Common benefits of handmade paper

At present, there is a revival in homemade papermaking crafts and it’s a good approach to recycle waste into wonderful and meaningful possibilities. Handmade paper is an environmental friendly and tree saving as a cotton rags and other waste products are converted into something meaningful by recycling and therefore cause less deforestation. This sector is made with pollution free methods as solar energy is used extensively and acid free techniques. Besides all, handmade paper have higher tensile, bursting, tearing and double fold strength with fine and elegant quality as compared to mill made paper (http://www.ecoindia.com/products/handmade-paper.html).

HISTORY OF PAPER

Paper Technology in the world

Through the myriad century the progress of man divided into three dominant fundamental stages of development and each transition extending through periods of hundreds or even thousands of years. These stages categorised into three broad categories that is speaking, painting or drawing and printing. The first stage speaking has existed from the beginning of time and constitutes the primary and fundamental form of expression. Prehistoric man used guttural sounds for communication to convey intelligible meaning among the peoples of primitive tribes. In the second stage of civilization development they evolve a new method of communication through drawing and painting as they realized that there was no point in saving thoughts through human voice. During this stage, method of communication has evolved and human intellectual powers rose to a vastly higher plane which hardly achieved through the vocal sound.

With the time drawing became a method of thought communication and first drawing stick be devised so that desired emblems or characters might be scratched in simple outline upon the inner walls of caves. But with the time and need the more workable materials such as wood, metal, stone, ceramics, leaves, barks, cloth, papyrus and parchment was used as a basic surfaces upon which characters was inscribe and these material fulfil individual requirements through the centuries. With the rapid development of calligraphy Chinese scholar develops a camel hair brush as a writing substance that was cheaper and more practical in compare to others. It was this urgent need for totally new writing surface that inspired the Chinese man Ts’ai Lun in 105 A.D. to invent paper. Ts’ai invented paper was a thin, felted material formed on flat, porous moulds from macerated vegetable fibre. Because of paper and printing invention, man is now considered as having reached a high state of civilization (Hunter 1947).

Ts’ai Lun form a sheet through a fibre of a broken paper mulberry bark. He conceived the idea of making paper from bark of trees, hemp waste, old rags and fish nets and later it was discovered that the quality of paper could be much improved with the addition of these materials to the pulp. Soon the paper was widely used by China and spread throughout the world by silk route. In 105 A.D he made a report to the emperor on the process of paper making, and received high praise for his ability. From this time, paper has been in use everywhere and is called the ‘Paper of Marquis Tsai’ (Ramaseshan, 1989).

Chinese began to use paper for writing in a few years and around 600 AD woodblock printing was invented. The first printed newspaper was seen in China by 740 AD. Early as the 6th century AD, to the east papermaking moved to Korea where production of paper began. During this pulp was prepared from fibre of hemp, rattan, mulberry, bamboo, rice straw, and seaweed. According to Korean tradition, monk Don-cho brought papermaking to Japan in approximately 610 A.D by sharing his knowledge at Imperial place after sixty years of Buddhism introduced in Japan (Ramaseshan, 1989).

According to the archaeological records, paper was introduced to Xinjiang area very early along the Silk Road. As early as the 2nd century paper was found at Kaochang, Loulan, Kusha, Kotan, and Dunhuang sites. Eventually the technique reached to India after 645 AD and Tibet around 650 AD. In 671 AD, Hsuan Tsang from China arrived to India and by the time paper was already widely used there. From the long time, Chinese guarded the paper manufacturing secrete and tried to eliminate others to assure a monopoly in paper production. However, in 751 AD the Ottoman Turks defeat the Tang army at a mighty Talas river battle. During this war some Chinese soldiers and paper makers were captured and brought to Smarkand. From these Chinese prisoners the Arabs learned the papermaking and built the first paper industry in Baghdad in 793 AD. Arab too wants to keep it secret but during the early 10th century Egyptian learned the papermaking from Arabs. The Europeans did not learn how to make paper until several centuries but around 1100 AD and 1150 AD paper arrived to Northern Africa and Spain respectively and first paper industry was established in Europe. The first printing press was invented by Johan Gutenberg in 1453 (Ramaseshan, 1989).

In Egypt a plant known as papyrus was abundantly found and thus ancient Egyptian, Greeks and Romans used this plant fibre to produce a thick sheet like material. This thick sheet was named as paper which was derived from the plant name Papyrus. Papyrus is only one of the predecessors of paper and collectively known as ‘Tapa’, a generic term. Tapa was mostly made from the inner bark of the fig, daphne trees and paper mulberry (http://www.cepi.org/node/2230).

Paper came to the western world with the military campaigns of arabs, first to Egypt and Syria at the begning of the 10th century, then somewhat later to north Africa and Spain while in the 12th century, at Xativa (near Valencia), Gerona and Manresa. The foundations for independent paper production in Europe were laid in Italy in the 13th century. It was here that water power was probably used for the first time to drive the crushing wheels which converted rag into pulp, where animal glue was used for sizing sheets and where watermarks were introduced. According to the documentary evidence places, the first paper mill was established in Foligno city of Italy in 1256. During the 13th and 14th centuries, the production of paper in Italy and spain met most of the needs of the other European countries. In France, the oldest confirmed mill was at La pielle, near Troyes in 1338. In 1390, Nuremberg councillor Ulmann Stromer (Stromeir), with the help of skilled workers from Italy, first started working on paper mill on German soil. After this, papermaking technique spread throughout Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries (www.papersmith.co.za;shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/102939/10/10_chapter%203.pdf)).

From Europe paper make its way to America during the 16th and 17th centuries. The Spaniards were operating a paper mill at Culhuacan, in Mexico, as early as 1575, while in north America, the first paper mill is supposed to have been established in German town, Pennsylvania, in 1690, by German born Wilhelm Rittinghausen. The technical progress was continued in the 17th century with the smoothing of sheet by hand, using a creasing knife or ‘blood stone’ with the help of smoothing hammer (similar to a forging hammer). Towards the end of the 17th century, a new and much more efficient beater, called a ‘Hollander’, was invented (History of Paper, papersmith & son, www.papersmith.co.za; 13 Chapter3. Pdf see refernce).

During the 18th century, there had been some concentration of craft activities in papermaking and this was dependent on skilled papermakers which were organized into craft groups. In 1978, J.N.L. Robert used the initial model vat and also built the first flat screen papermaking machine. This was further developed by Donking and the Fourdrinier brothers in England.

During 19th and 20th centuries the history of paper industry divided into five stages and each stages marked by definite trends:

In the first stage (from about 1800 to 1860), previously performed hand work sequence were now mechanized. During the second stage (1840-1880) an appropriate industrial plants were developed and new efforts were made to obtain rag as substitute on an industrial scale (ground wood pulp and chemical pulp mills). In the third stage (1860-1950) web width got enlarged and working speed enhanced due of an introduction and improvement of new electric drive and various machine parts respectively. The fourth stage (1950-1980) was still dependent on the old methods and mechanics were concerned and it brought some new changes in papermaking tools and techniques. In addition to further increasing in web width and working speeds, the new tools and techniques was also incorporated and these are the use of new raw materials (eg. Thermo-mechanical pulp), new-sheet forming method i.e. deinking process (eg. by twin-wire formers), neutral sizing and most of all mechanization.

Due of these changes, betterment in papermaking process was occurred and these are specialization in certain paper types, new paper grade development (eg. LWC- light weight coated paper), corporate mergers and starting of consuming their own supplied raw materials by company and because of unprofitable operations trading organisations get closed. With the end of this, fifth stage leads into future. The evolution of new sheet-forming principles (with fluid boundaries between paper and non-woven fabrics) and chemical pulp processes have improved (Tripathi, 2014).

During the 20th century, use of new materials and chemicals were introduced papermaking with the new sheet forming principles and chemical pulp process. Besides, the machines were also designed specifically for the particularly paper and board production. (http://www.paperlinx.com/).

In 21st Century and beyond this, the paper becomes an amazing product with the time. Now it is a renewable, clean and incredibly versatile with continuously offering new possibilities, applications and end-uses. It can be impregnated, enameled, creped, waterproofed, waxed, glazed, sensitized, bent, folded, twisted, crumpled, cut, torn, dissolved, molded, embossed and many more with no ends of expectations (http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/102939/10/10_chapter%203.pdf)

So that’s how mill paper evolved and journey of paper took place.

History of Handmade Paper Industry in India

The handmade paper making is a old process in India going back several centuries and was largely dominated by muslim Kagzis. The manufacturing of handmade paper in India is fairly well established at the small scale industry level. The industry has been described as an eco-friendly industry as it based on simple technology of making high quality paper, paper product and cards etc. from the waste materials.

The development of handmade paper dates back to China in 105 A.D. when T’sai Luin, an imperial guard prepared a paper for the emperor from mulberry and other barks, fishnets, hemp and rags. Though, Indians are reportedly credited to used paper prepared from cellulosic fibres during the 3rd century B.C. Before this period, palm leaves were used for writing in India (Kumar et al. 2013). It was destroyed and replaced with foreign paper mills during 18th and 19th centuries under colonial rule. In 1930’s Mahatma Gandhi make an effort to restart nearly non-operational industry and during 1935 under his guidance the revival was carried out under the shade of the Khadi and Village Industries Association. This association helps Indian handmade paper industry to flourish to the favourable surroundings in India and also play an important role in Swadeshi movement. Many freedom fighters was trained in handmade paper making during this movement and eventually helps a lot in setting handmade paper units in different part of India. After independence the care of these industry and research and development was taken over by Khadi and Village Industry Commission. This industry provided lot of employment opportunity to the villagers, especially the uneducated and subsidiary income, for both skilled and unskilled persons, based on their technical knowledge and ability (www.unep.fr/shared/publication/others/WEBxoo72xPA/manual_cdrom/CP links/pdfs/131_paper.pdf).

The Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) encourage entrepreneurs through financial assistance and technological assistance and this helps handmade paper units to grow. It grew from 35 in 1953 to more than 350 in 1993-94. In 1953, the value of handmade paper production was hardly Rs. 500,000 but it was more than Rs. 150 million in 1993. In handmade paper sector the employment potential is very large. It employs 7,500 people from which 50% are women (www.unep.fr/shared/publication/others/WEBxoo72xPA/manual_cdrom/CP links/pdfs/131_paper.pdf).

The raw material availability for this industry is very high as based on waste raw material. So, this is the only industry which makes wealth from waste. The raw material includes rags, tailor cloth cutting and agro-wastes. Different types of product can produce from the raw material by adding some essential chemicals and preservatives. The affluent generated from this can be used for irrigation as it doesn’t affect the plants or crops because of use of soft chemicals.

At present, a wide range of raw materials, such as bamboo, wood grass, rice and wheat straw, jute, rags and waste paper are available for paper and board making. Recently, Indian pulp and paper industry has experienced a vast growth together with consolidation due to the value addition activities like embossing embroidery on handmade paper etc. The village near Jaipur is the world’s largest centre of handmade paper while Delhi is an ideal location to find materials like waste rags and paper because it has a thriving rag trade and vast amounts of used paper. The handmade papermaking units are scattered throughout the country with more concentration in U.P., Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Kerala.

For handmade paper production a very low capital investment has needed and thereby promoting local entrepreneurship, it generates more local employment. Besides, it is an environmentally sound technology, depleting less resource and causing less pollution than paper mill factories. With all these environmental friendly techniques it can produce certain specialized varieties of paper, for example, watermark, filter paper and drawing sheets, etc. There is a marginal cost difference between handmade paper and mill made paper. With several technological changes taking place in the paper industry, the government has to rethink its land use policies and conservation strategies to protect the natural resources (Krishna.nic.in/PDfiles/MSME/other?handmade%20paper[1].pdf;www.unep.fr/shared/publication/others/WEBxoo72xPA/manual_cdrom/CP links/pdfs/131_paper.pdf). Thus, the handmade paper industry designated as an economically viable, ecologically friendly and sustainable method of producing high value paper based on successful technology.

Procedure of Handmade Papermaking in India

A sheet of paper or board produced by hand is known as Handmade Paper. If the sheet is formed by means of a cylinder mould and vat or on a fourdiner table, it cannot be called a handmade paper even if the subsequent operations are carried out discontinuously . The traditional steps involved in handmade paper making are:

Sorting and dusting: Sorting and dusting of raw material is done on the basis of raw material production process.

Cutting: The raw material is used to chopped or cut in desired length, suitable for pulp making.

Soaking: It was done to remove dust, non cellulosic materials and to soften the fibre through reducing its hardness.

Pulp making (Pulping) and sizing: Beating machine, known as Beater, is used to convert the raw material into pulp.

Lifting: The handmade paper unit uses dip vats. The vat is filled with three-fourths amount of water and the necessary amount of the pulp is poured in and the final volume is made with more water. Later on, the sheets were made with the help of vat man on the frame and couch the sheet on the couching board to press and dry the sheets.

Pressing: After lifting the wet sheet it is couched for removal of water. So that calendaring will done properly by uniform pressing. Earlier, the water was removed by using of manpower but now with the technological development, hydraulic press is used for squeezing the water from the wet sheet.

Drying: In this process, the pressed wet papers are dried in the open place under the shed with asbestos roof on ropes. After drying, the dry papers are undergoing for calendaring process.

Calendaring: After drying papers are sort out according to their weight. The obtained sheet surface is not suitable for paper and board, and is uneven. To make uniform surface the calendaring machine, comprised of two heavy weight iron rollers are used to pass paper into the roller. When it passes in between the two rollers due to heavy pressure it makes uniform surface on the board.

Cutting and Packing: Cutting is the final stage of the production process and is done for paper sizing through cutting machine according to the standard measurement.

The above mentioned steps of handmade paper making are traditional but with time the process get changed and modified as per due to increase in demand of market and use of an alternate raw material. The main possible modification was done under the step of pulping and additionally in bleaching process also. The alternate raw materials include leaf fibre Banana (Musa Sapientum), bast fibre Ankara (Calotropis Procera), leaf fibre Pineapple (Ananas Comosus), Paddy straw, Bagasse, Wheat Straw, Jute waste, Bamboo, Sun hemp, leaf fibre Sisal, Papyrus, Elephant grass, Esparto grass etc. and many more are under study for making pulps for handmade paper industry.

These raw materials provide a cost effective and good quality cellulosic raw material as an alternate to too expensive traditionally used cotton hosiery waste for manufacturing good quality handmade paper and its products. With the introduction of new raw materials and on the basis of their chemical composition and lignin content there is slight changes in the paper making steps in pulping and bleaching with the addition of chemicals in them. Currently, throughout the world all non-wood fibre pulping were done through the chemical process (Kraft, Soda and Sulfite). The kraft process uses sodium hydroxide and sodium sulphite, the soda process uses caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) and sodium ash (sodium carbonate) while some add antriquinone (AQ). The kraft (sulphate pulping) pulping is commonly used for speciality pulps, including those made from hemp and kneaf to produce high strength speciality pulp (Environmental Defense fund, 1996). Sulfite pulp process produces almost pure cellulose fibres wood pulp by using various sulfurous acid salts to extract the lignin in large pressure vessels called digesters.

On the basis of the pH, either be sulfites (SO32−) or bisulfites (HSO3−) salts were used in pulping process. During this the counter ion sodium (Na+ ), calcium (Ca2+), potassium (K+ ), magnesium (Mg2+) or ammonium (NH4+ ). For specialty paper the sulphite pulp remains an important thing (http://www.kpatents.com/assets/files/applications/apn-3-02-00.pdf). Another step known as bleaching, a chemical treatment of pulp fibres for the purpose of increasing pulp brightness. The cleanliness of paper were improved through the disintegration of contaminating particles such as bark and the brightness stability of paper improved by reducing the tendency of bleached pulp to turn yellow. Bleaching removes residual lignin chemicals (http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/102939/10/10_chapter%203.pdf).

The three general approaches to bleaching are elemental chlorine bleaching, elemental chlorine free bleaching and totally chlorine free bleaching. Chemicals used in bleaching process are Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH), Elemental Chlorine (Cl2), Oxygen (O2), Ozone (O3), Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), Hypochlorite (HClO), Chloroform, Dioxins, Furans, Sulphur Dioxide (SO2), Sulphuric Acid (H2SO4) and Chlorine Dioxide (ClO2) (Technical EIA Guidance Manual for Pulp and Paper Industries, Prepared for The ministry of Environment and Forests Government of India, by IL & FS Ecosmart limited Hyderabad, August 2010). The process of bleaching yields organic compounds which causes high color, COD and BOD in the effluent of integrated pulp and paper industry which has not easily degraded by wastewater treatment. Therefore, the efficient treatment system is required for utmost reduction of pollutant from the wastewater of pulp and paper industries (Sudarshan, 2016).

Uses of Handmade paper

There are number of uses of handmade paper as drawing paper, greeting cards, wedding cards, file covers, flaps, file board, wrapper paper, carry bags, visiting cards etc. The overall demand of handmade paper and board in India cannot be assessed as these products are only liked and used by specific customers according to their taste and variety of paper available in market at that time. Normally handmade paper is slightly costlier than the normal mill made paper. The main buyer of handmade paper is government departments and supplied through KVIC.

Market Potential

In year 1812 the Indian paper industry took birth at the first paper in Bengal and it has made considerable progress during the last 50 years.in India, there was less than 20 mills with total annual production of lakh tonnes. Today, the output is over 35 lakh tones from more than 500 mills. The main buyers of Indian handmade paper are Egypt, Holland, UK, Germany and U.S.A. The rising trends in the last few years shows that the market is rising with better production facilities, infrastructure and raw materials available which supports India to export its handmade paper to many countries. (http://krishna.nic.in/PDFfiles/MSME/Other/Handmade%20Paper[1].pdf).

Over the last 150 years, since the kraft fourdriener process introduced the nature of paper and papermaking has changed. With the change from more than hundred years the paper industry has been providing noble mobility services to the public. It has a large capacity to fulfil the paper demand with the aim of improving economy and worthwhile service facility. This industry is strictly adhered with the rules and regulation and procedure formulated by government to resolve the grievance of employees and understanding the attitude. With all these techniques and equipment the paper making techniques have changed dramatically not only techniques and equipments but addition of new material also occurs.

The pulp and paper industry is one of the most industrial sickness affected industry. There is a variety of sickness causes notably raw material shortage. So with this, the industry is raw material competitiveness, energy competitiveness and need technology upgradation as well. In comparison to the ordinary mill paper handmade paper has a higher average strength. This strength property is only achieved through the use of highet grades of rags, as a rule which are strongly dub-sized and well matured.

The other very important feature, a very high degree of permanence and durability can achieve through high grade of cellulose fibre which required very little chemical processing and consequently fibre undergo minimum degradation. But because of all above competitiveness the industry needs to explore more and more in field of raw material which has high cellulose and low lignin contents. Exploration of lignocellulosic raw materials for handmade paper manufacturing should help the problem of raw material scarcity. Ligninocellulosic raw materials like banana, Ankara are available in huge quantity in Asia and African countries. In these countries such raw material are treated as waste and dumped as waste biomass. The use of such raw material should address the environmental problems and global warming with raw material scarcity. So the main point is to be focussed to go with a lower amount of chemicals to avoid effluent loads on the environment and also to gives sufficient strength properties.

The research and development should continue with special emphasis on an alternative raw materials and acid free papers with the aim of minimizing the use of chemicals to provide chemical free environment. Therefore, new biotechnological tools and techniques need to be incorporated and developed in this sector to provide green and safe environment. Under this biotechnological approach the microorganisms are used to introduced so that the pollution level get reduced and the efficient treatment system get started for reduction of pollutant from the pulp and paper industries wastewater.

Thus biopulping, a biotechnological tool used to incorporate in pulp and paper industry to develop paper from the lignocellulosic raw material. This technique has a potential to overcome from the conventional papermaking problems which may also help in reduction of chemicals and energy usage in papermaking process. In this technique raw material are treated with a selected microorganism in order to obtain energy savings in refining and pulp quality improvement. The selected biopulping organism is white rot fungus which soften the lignocellulosic raw material by growing and attacks on lignin (and carbohydrates) of lignocellulosic raw material.

Fungus has possess a huge number of enzymatic activities which can be easily used to replace different chemicals in various industries for lowering down the pollution levels but still the relatively less explored group. The fungal enzyme system is directly involved not only in the degradation of xenobiotic compounds and dyes but also in the degradation of highly recalcitrant lignin biomolecule. White rot fungi, basidiomycete group, have a unique ability to degrade and mineralize lignin through secretion of extracellular ligninolytic enzymes which are highly tolerant to toxic substances and having high degree of non specificity in their nature. Thus, the potent cultures of white rot fungi having high ligninolytic potential can be very useful for the paper industry applications of biopulping/biobleaching/effluent treatment etc.

So, the present research aiming to isolate various white rots fungal cultures from different regions of the pink city suitable for lignocellulosic raw material and promising results have been obtained with isolated fugal strain. This study is based on the result obtained with isolate Schizophyllum commune and Perenniporia tephropora and Ganoderma lucidium as standard.

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