new delhi the indian paper industry which is facing inadequate raw material availability has urged the government to offer degraded forest land and nonforest government land near mills for pulpwood plantation a move that will also help increase the green cover in the countryraw material security is necessary for the paper industry to become selfreliant said the indian paper manufacturers association ipma in its prebudget submission to the finance ministry asking to consider its proposal for allowing pulpwood plantation in degraded landbeing a wood fibredeficient country inadequate raw material availability has emerged as a major constraint for the domestic paper industry in meeting the growing demand for paper led by drivers such as growth in the education sector and discouraging use of singleuse plastic said an ipma statementipma president a s mehta we sincerely want the government to consider our proposal of offering degraded land to the industry for pulpwood plantation restoration of degraded land through plantation by the paper industry could help india meet its target of increasing green cover in the country and make india a world leader in paper manufacturingterming it as a winwin he said this will also lead to the greening of india unlocking the significant potential for employment generation especially in rural areasaccording to ipma the organised paper industry has invested around rs 25000 crore in the past few years but raw material constraints are putting a spanner in the workscurrent demand for wood one of the key raw materials by indias paper industry is about 11 million tonnes per annum tpa against domestic availability of nine million tpa and is projected to rise to 15 million tpa by 202425 at the current rates of growth it saidthe paper industry has brought around 12 million hectares of land under plantations through industrydriven agro farm forestry said ipma adding that indias paper industry is woodpositive as it plants more trees than it harvestsit may be recalled that under its nationally determined contributions ndcs india needs to bring an additional 2530 million hectares of degraded land under forest and tree cover to create an additional carbon sink of 253 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030the government should consider making degraded forest land and nonforest government land available to the paper industry in close proximity of the mills for plantation activitiesindias paper industry looks forward to partnering in building green india and contributing to the national objective of bringing 33 per cent of the landmass in india under tree cover it said