Recognize Plywood & Panel Industries As Agro-Based

RECOGNIZE PLYWOOD & PANEL INDUSTRIES
AS AGRO-BASED INDUSTRY SECTOR – AIPMA

To
Sh Prakash Javadekar 
Honourable Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change,

Subject:  Identify & Recognise Farm Produced wood as Agro-produce and recognize Plywood & Panel Industries Sector as Agro-based industry sector.

Necessity & Importance of Recognition : India has some of the best institutes in the world such as the Forest Research Institute (FRI) Dehradun, under ICFRE to develop and promote plantation timber under Agro-Forestry, Indian Plywood Industries Research & Training Institute (IPIRTI – MoEFCC) to impart updated training and testing. And up skilling youngsters for sector competency.

In this regard, I on behalf of AIPMA request you to consider the fact that how a tree grown by a farmer in his agricultural land can be considered as forest produce? Our country needs to immediately resolve this ambiguity of representation of raw material, in order to bring permanent clarity on the matter. The plywood and panel industry is entirely independent of forests based raw materials.

As stated during a sector webinar by Federation of Indian Plywood & Panel Industries (FIPPI) Chairman & Century Plywoods (I) Ltd Chairman Shri Sajjan Bhajanka Ji– China & India have relatively similar populations, yet China produces 200 Million Cubic Meters (CBM) of plywood & panel products, and India is yet to achieve 20 Million CBM (1/10th). So where are we lagging?

The period during 2016-2019 has seen an Export-Import gap of 31, 655 Crores in the wood based industries sector (Pandey & Roy, 2020), which is a big drain on our foreign currency resources. We believe this gap can be immediately arrested together, with timely action. Treating  Farm-produce timber as agro-products, and thereby recognizing plywood & panel sector industries as Agro-based industries will hugely benefit all the stakeholders, especially the farmers. It would pave the way for easier certification and standardization of the industry sector, making Indian Plywood & Panel Industries Sector more export competitive.

Benefit & Consequences of recognition as agro based indstury:
· Plug the export-import gap by making India more Export competitive.
· Motivate the industry to increase participation in product development and innovation, with the support of reputed sector based institutes of International excellence.
· Identification as Agro based industries clears the way for automatic certification thereby highlighting the truth that Indian products are of sustainable origin.
· Increase in production, thereby increasing employment as the sector is labour intensive.
· Immediate work towards wood resource expansion & self-reliance.
· Enhance the interest of farmers with increase in market demand.
· More wood produced= more green cover for the country = more carbon sequestration.
· Bring the plywood industry into the organized sector

We are awaiting your kind & prompt action to promote & develop an internationally competitive and fully developed plywood & panel indstry sector in India.

Mr.Naresh Tewari
Chairman, All India Plywood Manufacturers Association   

(Excerpts from the letter)