With Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman who is set to present the Union Budget for the financial year 2022-23 on 1st February. The plastic and polymer industries are hopeful and confident for a positive future.

The Indian plastic market which comprises of around 25,000 companies, it employs about 3 million people and comprises more than 30,000 processing units, 85-90% of which are small and medium-sized enterprises. India exported plastics raw material worth 352.04 US$ million in July 2021, and the export during April 2021 to July 2021 was 1.57 US$ billion.

Despite India having a population of 1.3 billion and a workforce of 467 million, plastics organizations have pronounced troubles with labour shortages. This has caused expanded funding in automation and conveyor belt systems.

Even in these tough and challenging situations the Government trust to triple the industry turnover from Rs.3 lac crore to Rs.10 lac crore in next 5 years. This shows the growth potential that exist in the industry. Government’s support to boost this high potential industry should facilitate the industry requirements of easy loans with reduced interest rate and lower working capital margin. Reduction in the import duty on raw material and capital goods, higher export incentives on finished goods, extension in GST and IT payment days and special financial package for COVID stressed accounts would help Polymer Industry achieve turnover target of Rs.10 lac Crore set by our Honourable Minister for Commerce and Industry.

Achieving the set target would involve huge capacity expansion along with most effective utilization of all four resources- money, machine, materials and manpower.

Plastic industry in spite facing down trend has been major contributor to economic growth figures and will keep its pace growing in the GDP contribution in coming days. We need to utilize our spare capacity which would not only help Polymer industry to quickly achieve the expected target figure of Rs.10 lac Crore but will also help industry achieve higher profit, better debt serving, and economies of scale.

The plastic industries play a critical role in the Indian economy on the international market, hence the introduction of subsidies in this budget could help this sector significantly. Apart from this simplifying taxation, investment and adoption of technologies would be immensely helpful to the industry as well as the GDP growth of the country.