The commercial production of newsprint has begun at Kerala Paper Products Ltd in Vellore. In the presence of P Rajeeve, the minister of industries, A. K. Saseendran, the minister of forest and wildlife protection, and V. N. Vasavan, the minister of cooperation, Kerala’s finance minister, K. N. Balagopal, officially opened the operations.
Balagopal said it was unusual for a State Government to take over a Central Public Sector Factory as he flagged off the first load of paper produced by the unit.
According to Industries Minister Rajeeve, the government wants to grow KPPL into a company with a Rs 3,000 crore annual revenue. KPPL will have a 5 lakh tonnes per year production capability when the third and fourth phases of developmental work are finished, employing about 3,000 workers.
In the first phase, KPPL would produce high-quality 45 GSM newsprints. As the operations settle down, KPPL would produce 42 GSM newsprints and 52-70 GSM writing and printing paper.
