Interview with Mr Ravi Kapoor

ICC is a 68-year-old chemical body representing the medium and large-scale chemical industry in India. It is recognized by the Government of India, Ministry of Chemical & Fertilizers as being the premier chemical body and participates in the decision making process in issues like indirect taxes and duty, special trade agreements like FTA, addresses specific concerns of chemical industry with regard to Government regulations like environmental and other safety legislations. ICC addresses the growing technical requirements of the industry and the globally changing scenario visà- vis the industry.

ICC is playing a key role in educating chemical industry on the ramifications of REACH. It is coordinating actively with the Government of India to facilitate information dissemination and ensure compliance from side of the industry. Help desks are being set up all across the country especially in chemical industry dominated areas including Gujarat. A think tank has been formed and ICC is playing a pivotal role in coordinating activities including GLP. Agencies like SGS Ltd. and Jay Research Foundation are being roped in serving these efforts.

Traditionally industry is been a major manufacturer of textile Dyes tracing its history to the rise of textile industry in the early 1900s when the first Indian Dyestuff Manufacturer M/s Arlabs came up in the 1940s. Subsequently, other companies also set up manufacturing units. Currently, the Indian Dye and Pigment industry is a major player in the global supply chain for textiles, coatings and plastics. Leading companies like Dystar have also started to invest into manufacturing capacities in Ankleshwar, Gujarat.

The CWC program of ICC has been most successfully implemented in Gujarat. A number of seminars have been held over the past 3 years to educate industry on ramifications of CWC as well as inform them of the different categories falling under the CWC. ICC has been extremely active in getting its members to comply and has worked closely with Government of India to facilitate this. As part of these efforts a major function will be held in Baroda in December 2007 to inform the industry on audit procedures and the specific compliance issues where a wide participation from national and international is expected.

The petrochemical industry in India is growing at a rapid rate. Reliance’s new refinery will come on stream in the next year. There is a huge activity in petrochemical based industries all over the country.

Specialty chemicals: It is now recognized that due to the inherent strength of skilled manpower and resources in research activity coming out of the success of pharma industry that the emphasis of growth and value addition needs to focus on specialty chemical industry. In fact, in a report on chemical industry in India, it has been estimated that to take the industry from a $30 million to a potential $100 million in the next 5-8 years the booster rocket needs to come from the specialty and knowledge industry. It also needs to be pointed out that the budgets on research and developments from companies are still too low and also vital tie-ups between University and industry are missing. The Government has clear-cut policies to encourage research and development, but much more needs to be done by Industry and bodies representing industry to co-ordinate these efforts. What is required is a synergy between Government, industry and academia.

ICC is at the forefront of encouraging its members to comply and has proactively introduced the Responsible Care Program, which has now got GSFC, GACL, Alembic and Heubach Colour Pvt. Ltd. desiring to receive the logo . Companies such as Tata Chemicals, United Phosphorous Ltd., Bihar Caustic & Chemicals, SRF Ltd. , Rohm & Haas Pvt. Ltd., S.I Group India Ltd., SRF Ltd. and Supreme Petrochem Ltd. have already received it. ICC Gujarat launched Responsible Care Program on 22nd December 2006 and is already in the process of auditing a large public sector unit in the state and number of other companies has signed up for the audit in the near future. 'The Best Responsible Care Committed Company Award' has been instituted and is considered by its members to be most prestigious award to be attained. ICC regularly holds seminar for waste reduction, energy conservation, and clean management considers the environmental issues as top of their agenda.

The country’s exports of chemical goods are far too small as compared to its size and potential. Infrastructure bottlenecks, lack of global size, inadequate concentration on R&D, all contribute to this low level of exports. There is an upward movement and one of the key contributions for the future could well be the SEZ program of the Government along with the PCPIR (Petroleum, Chemical & Petrochemicals Investment Region). This would create a huge amount of activity with a cluster growth of specific chemistry oriented industries located in an infrastructure, which stimulates growth and takes away the bottlenecks and irritants. Needless to say that there still exists bottlenecks of infrastructure like roads, power, R&D facilities, analytical laboratories which still needs to be addressed and areas of huge concern is the shortage of manpower and urgent need of recognizing and forecasting the need of Industry in the next 20 years. Here we run the risk of having missed the boat and urgently need to make up by providing high quality educational institutions at affordable prices to churn out millions of people required for the growth which is already occurring and continues to occur provided, it is fueled by the most important ingredient and unique strength of industry (skilled and educated manpower). This advantage cannot be allowed to be fritted away.

Foreign players setting base in India do post some threat to the local industry. However, the benefits far outweigh the risks. India no longer should and needs to protect its local industry, which in any case needs to compete globally. In fact, foreign players can push the local industry to become more efficient and optimize its operations. In the end it still would be a case of efficient, global sized companies being successful rather than foreign or Indian .