Corrugated box manufacturers plan to approach the Competition Commission of India (CCI) with a complaint that paper mills supplying kraft paper, the key raw material for the boxes, are acting as a cartel.
A decision in this regard will be taken shortly at the national level and a complaint is likely to be filed by next week, M.L. Agarwal, past president, Federation of Corrugated Box Manufacturers of India, said here on Monday.
Addressing presspersons along with MVM Bharat, president, Andhra Pradesh Corrugated Box Manufacturers Association, he said that such a move was being necessitated in view of increase in the price of kraft paper several times effected by the mills since January. Accusing the raw material manufacturers of acting as a cartel, by effecting a similar quantum of increase on the same day, they said that the price of the raw material had been raised four times since January. The effective increase in raw materail price has been in the 22 to 29 per cent band and varies based on the paper quality.
Corrugated box manufacturers in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have already downed shutters in protest. An estimated 2,500 units, with as many as 1,500 of them in and around Hyderabad, are on strike from March 19 to 21.
Hinting that a consensus, among the box manufacturers across the country, on approaching the CCI was being evolved, Mr. Agarwal said that there was also plan to take the issue to the Union Minister of MSME.
Apart from affecting supplies to a host of industries, which are users of corrugated boxes and possibly some of them also switching over to plastics, the closure of the units would affect livelihoods of several thousands of people, the leaders said.
