India’s first packaging park – a cluster of industries specialising in making wide variety of packaging material for user units – is likely to be located in Visakhapatnam.
Senior officials from the State government, including Collector N. Yuvaraj, APIIC Chairman P. Krishnaiah and MP K. Haribabu, have expressed their willingness to allot land for the park.
Indian Institute of Packaging, autonomous institute specialising in packaging technology, training, testing and research and development under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has already submitted a report on its assessment of the situation to the Centre after its Chairman R.V.S. Ramakrishna and Director N.C. Saha visited the city last month.
Dr. Saha told The Hindu on Monday that 50 to 100 acres was required to establish a packaging park for which they were ready to start their campus in the city to ensure quality checks and training. The APIIC officials offered 10 acres at Gambheeram, close to the land earmarked for Indian Institute of Management, for IIP campus.
Though there are 10,000 industries of various sizes dealing with various products, the city has just 50 packaging material-making units. Most of the industries in Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City and Brandix India Apparel City are either sourcing their packing material from Mumbai, Kolkata or Hyderabad. Some of their requirement is met from Japan and Sri Lanka.
Dr. Saha said Visakha Dairy, which produces milk and various dairy products itself had the need for packaging material worth Rs.70 crore to Rs.80 crore to increase shelf life. Some of its requirement is being sourced from Bhutan.
Seafood exporters in the city were dependent entirely on outside suppliers to meet their requirement, he said. Dr. Saha said they had invited APIIC to take part in sixth international packaging exhibition – INDIAPACK-2015 slated for October 8 to 11 in Mumbai to showcase the investment potential in packaging units in Visakhapatnam.
