T'gana Govt To Earmark Space For Packaging Makers At MSME Parks

Hyderabad: As packaging material manufacturers cater to different industries, the government has decided to co-locate them with others manufacturers that will be setting up units in the upcoming MSME parks.

Addressing the fourth edition of CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) Telangana PackCon 2024, in Hyderabad on Thursday, Jayesh Ranjan, Special Chief Secretary, Industries and Com-merce, Government of Telangana, said, “When we prepare the master plan of these new MSME parks we will make sure to set aside space for packaging industry. For instance, at the Pharma village, plots will be allocated to drug manufacturers, but pharma packaging material industry is an important ancillary, hence some plots will be earmarked for them too.”

On December 8, IT minister D Sridhar Babu had announced setting up of 10 industrial parks for MSMEs in the region between Outer Ring Road and Regional Ring Road, which will be called as semi-urban Telangana. Adding to this, Jayesh Ranjan said that “manufacturing focused indus-trial development will move beyond urban Telangana. Now, the industrial activity will take place in the semi-urban belt where 10 locations have been identified and lands between 300 acres to 2,000 acres have been marked for the MSME parks.”

Most of the industrial parks in Telangana focus on a particular vertical such as, food processing park, Life Sciences park, aerospace and defense park, electronics manufacturing park, textile, and plastics, among others. Going ahead, these sector-specific industries will be in proximity with the packaging material manufacturers, Ranjan informed.

Laying down opportunities for collaboration between the State and industries, the Special Chief Secretary invited packaging material manufacturers to partner with Young India Skills University to design a curriculum, and delegate their team to mentor students, in the shop floor skills needed to manage the packaging facility. He also urged them to collaborate with T-Hub, T-Works or We Hub for finding solutions to their problem statements.

Jayesh Ranjan also called for collaboration to achieve Net Zero target by 2047. He pointed out that as the packaging industry is a contributor to the carbon load, the industry should come for-ward to work out a plan for small and medium players to take decisions on lines of large manu-facturers in cutting down carbon emission.

After listening to Special Chief Secretary’s comment on earmarking space for packaging material manufacturers, Bengaluru-based Toriox Group, a pharma packaging materials manufacturer said it is inclined to set up its sixth manufacturing unit in Telangana. The company CEO Ashis Bhattacharya told Bizz Buzz, “we have been indirect suppliers to pharma majors from Hyderabad. Now, we want to sell our packaging materials directly to the drug manufacturers here. For which, we will invest about Rs 20 crore into setting up a unit in the upcoming industrial park, after final-ising discussions with TGIIC in the coming year.”

Delivering the special address, Raja Bhanu, Director General, Pharmexcil, said that the packaging sector plays a key role in ensuring delivery of affordable high-quality medicines to the pharma sector, which is cornerstone of India’s economy. At present the pharma sector is registering about $54 billion annual turnover with 70 per cent of the drugs exported to highly regulated markets such as the US and Europe, he added.

Anil Epur, past Chairman – CII, Chakravarthi AVPS, Chairman – CII TG PackCon 2024, and R S Reddy, Vice Chairman, CII Telangana, also spoke during the inaugural session of the two-day summit.