Corrugated board box manufacturers to go on strike on Monday

Kolkata, April 1 (IANS) Over 900 corrugated board box manufacturers in eastern India have called for a one-day token strike on Monday to protest against the "unprecedented and unjustified" increase in the cost of primary raw materials.

"We have seen unprecedented and unjustified increase in cost of kraft paper, a primary raw material for corrugated board box manufacturing. The manufacturing activities were hurt by a cumulative rise of 20-25 per cent in prices of different grades of kraft paper since the last week of January," Eastern India Corrugated Box Manufacturers' Association's President Milan Kumar Dey told IANS on Saturday.

Dey said more than 900 manufacturers comprising mostly MSME units in West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Sikkim and the north-eastern states will join the strike.

"The kraft paper price escalation has seriously affected the working of corrugated board box manufacturers to such an extent that they are prepared to suffer a loss of production for one-day amounting to more than Rs 7 crore," he said.

The association feared that due to the uneconomic cost of output, several corrugated board box units have already cut down their production, which would affect the livelihood of 35 thousand workers and their families, apart from the loss of VAT revenue to the state governments and excise to the central government.

Besides, the high cost of packaging will make Indian products non-competitive in the global market, he added.

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