Handmade Papermaking in India

Handmade paper is a sheet of paper or board produced by hand. If the sheet is formed by means of a cylinder mould and vat or on a fourdiner table, it cannot be called a han dmade paper even if the subsequent operations are carried out discontinuously. It should, however, be noted that the Khadi and Village Industry Commission (KVIC) includes paper and boards made in the cylinder mould machine (CMM) with a definite maximum deckle width of up to 102 cm. The All India Khadi and Village Industries Board was established in 1953 and it includes the handmade paper industry in its development program. The above board later became the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), which further encouraged this industry through financial assistance and technological assistance such as introducing new equipment, new techniques, developing new varieties of paper, utilizing locally available diverse raw materials and helping entrepreneurs in their marketing efforts. The handmade paper units also enjoy several fiscal concessions and incentives such as central excise duty and sales tax exemptions in some States . Due to the above supporting program of the KVIC the number of handmade paper units 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 in 1993 than Rs. 150 million. The employment potential of the handmade paper industry is large. It employs 7,500 people of whom 50% are women. The total wage bill amounts to over Rs. 42.5 million. Table 1. gives details of the number of units, production and sale values, employment and wages.

 
Table 1: Performance of Handmade Paper units

Year	No. of working	Employment	Production	Sales	Wages
	Units	in 800	Rs. Lakhs		Rs. Lakhs
2002-01	84	1	115	152	54.05
2003-02	108	4	224	168	72.00
2004-03	176	5	481	189	74.99
2005-04	300	6	582	197	78.21
2006-05	325	6	590	609	289.64
2007-06	344	7	1201	2095	409.31
2008-07	350	7.5	1305	2480	436.00
2007-08	365	6	905	1572	387.29
2008-09	422	6	900	1546	370.94
2009-10	460	8	1403	3024	598.71
2010-11	507	9	1524	3059	674.55
2011-12	580	8	1457	3021	681.56

Source: Review Reports of HMPI                                                                            

In 1995 the production of handmade paper & board was 13,000 tones valued at Rs. 250 million which is 0.4 % of the total production of paper in India. The export value of handmade paper and products would be Rs. 70 million, indicating the high potential of the industry as an exportable commodity.

The handmade papermaking units are scattered throughout the country with more concentration in U.P., Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Kerala. The capacity of the units range from 50 kgs to 700 kgs per day. Registered institutions, cooperative societies, private entrepreneurs and individual artisans own the units. KVIC has an ambitious national program of increasing the production capacity to 60,000 tonnes (1.2% of the total projected paper production in India) by the year 2002 . Table 2
shows various raw materials used in the handmade paper making.