Plastics raffia or Woven sack sector is one of the key segments of plastics processing industries in India, contributing in the growth of consumption of commodity plastics like polyethylene (PE) & polypropylene (PP). The Plastics Woven sack industry can be classified into following major product packaging categories depending upon the end use applications:
As per estimates in 2016, around 2.0 Million tons of PE & PP materials consumed by Raffia sector (including masterbatches,additives used in the processing of polymers) in India, accounting for 20% of total polymer consumption in the country.
The size of the raffia industry is estimated by means of financial turnover of raffia products under different category, as per report of Baseline survey of technical textiles, by Ministry of Textiles, Govt of India in 2014. Accordingly, the raffia sector products are mainly grouped in Packtech, Agrotech, Geotech etc., details are as follows:
India’s raffia industries are organized in terms of operation but are labor-intensive with larger number of requirements of Loom operators (60% of total strength), winder man, tape plant operators, conversion machine like BCS / Valvomatic machine operators etc. This sector consist of about 1200 industries across India with installed capacity of around 3 million tons. In terms of number of machines there are around 1500 tape plants, 42000 looms & CAGR of raffia sector is estimated between 5-6%.
The raffia industries are spread across India with domination of western region of the country with 40 % of industries situated in Gujarat, Maharashtra & Madhya Pradesh. In UP, Kanpur is the major place of raffia industries concentration, NCR, Punjab & Haryana have concentrated areas where Raffia Industries are situated. In South India, Karnataka, Tamilnadu & Andhra Pradesh have reasonable number of raffia industries catering to the requirement of Cement, Fertilizer, cattle feed & rice packaging etc.
