With India constituting about 4 per cent of global packaging markets and constantly growing at 15-20 per cent annum, the Indian packaging market is expected to reach $32 billion by the year 2020. While delivering his speech at ‘Inno Vision Packaging’ National Conference in Hyderabad, Prof. N.C. Saha, Director of IIP, predicted that the packaging sector in the country is expected to reach $32 billion in the next 3 years. “The per capita packaging consumption in India is very low at just 8.7 kilograms as against 42 Kilograms compared to some of the western countries. However, organised retail and boom in e-commerce, which offer huge potential for future growth of retailing, is expected to give a big boost to the packaging sector”, informed Prof. Saha.
Earlier, the two-day ‘Inno Vision Packaging’ National Conference was inaugurated by Jayesh Ranajan, Principal Secretary, ITE & C Department Government of Telangana. According to the organizers, the objective of the National Conference is to update the worldwide innovations in packaging to discuss and to disseminate among the others to upgrade packaging standards in packaging materials, technologies, techniques and packaging machines informed Prof (Dr) NC Saha. The National Conference is organized with the support from World Packaging Organization and The Asian Packaging Federation.
The conference focused on the theme called ‘Visionary Innovation, Sustainable innovation’ and it essentially focused innovation that is affordable and implantable.
Addressing a gathering of more than 300 delegates, Jayesh Ranjan, said that the Packaging is the one sector that is driven by Industry leaders.“We at state government will explore what government can do for Packaging industry,” said Jayesh Ranjan.
The principal secretary also highlighted on the two innovations of the Telangana State Government, which include Rich-Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad, an initiative by the government and research establishments such as CCMB, IICT, LV Prasad Eye Institute and ICRISAT to take research work to marketable product or service and T-Works. He told IIP to take membership and collaborate for common good. “No Indian city has RICH, which has association of more than a dozen top research institutes,” observed the Principal Secretary. Speaking further he talked about another initiative of state, T-Works for Hardware on the lines of T-Hub.After T-Hub, Telangana plans T-Works to encourage hardware startups. T-Works will act as a prototyping centre for electronics, semiconductors and hardware start-ups he informed. It will be a very large setup and will come up in Osmania University. It will be opened formally during the Centenary Celebrations of Osmania University. It is expected to be launched through the hands of President of India, he informed.
On the first day of the conference, some of the highlights of the seminar include sessions on Novel Packaging for safety, packaging key enabler for standing out on the shelf; Smart and Intelligent Packaging; High barrier Packaging materials for high performance packing in pharmaceuticals; Future Trends in Pharma Packaging; Opportunities in packaging design for e-commerce; Advances in process automation; Sustainability and advances in recycling process and regulatory compliance etc.