Orissa plant will help improve JK Paper’s realisations
JK Paper commissioned its Rs. 1,750-crore expansion at Rayagada, Orissa, last month adding nearly 60 per cent to its paper production capacity. The expansion comes at a time when the general economic scene is slow, costs are on the rise and the paper industry has seen a huge increase in capacity in recent years, particularly in the printing and writing paper. Harshpati Singhania, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, JK Paper, shares with Business Line his views on the impact the expansion will have on the company and the outlook in the market. What does the expansion mean for JK Paper? The expansion adds an annual pulping capacity of 2.15 lakh tonnes; paper capacity of 1.65 lakh tonnes; and a captive power generation of 55 MW. The existing paper machine capacity totalling 2.9 lakh tonnes will continue to run fully. The plant adds to JK Paper’s scale and volume. Cost of production will go down and margins will increase due to this fully automated plant. The