India is likely to open its first packaging park, which will be a cluster of industries specialising in making a wide variety of packaging material for user units, in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.
The Indian Institute of Packaging, an autonomous institute specialising in packaging technology, training, testing and research and development that comes under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has already submitted a report of its assessment to the central government.
The Hindu quoted director of Indian Institute of Packaging NC Saha as saying that the packaging park project would require about 50 to 100 acres, for which, they are ready to start a campus in the city to ensure quality checks and training.
Close to 10 acres has been offered by the APIIC officials for IIP campus at Gambheeram which is close to the land designated for Indian Institute of Management.
Although there are close to 10,000 industries of various sizes dealing with various products, the city only has 50 packaging material-making units.
However, most of the industries in Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City and Brandix India Apparel City source their packaging material from places like Mumbai, Kolkata or Hyderabad and at times from Japan and Sri Lanka.
The Hindu further quoted Saha as saying that Visakha Dairy that produces milk and dairy products itself has a requirement for packaging material worth around Rs.70 crore to Rs.80 crore to increase shelf life, which it sources from Bhutan.
IIP said that they have invited APIIC to participate in INDIAPACK-2015 to showcase the investment potential in packaging units in Visakhapatnam.
