INS for cut in newsprint consumption by publishers

In an advisory to INS members, its President Bahubali Shah said the only way to curb the tendency towards cartelization and to normalise the situation was "to act in concert in reducing our newsprint consumption by 20 per cent, through such steps as may be convenient to individual members".       

Shah and Chairman of Newsprint INS held intensive consultations yesterday with a number of publisher members on measures to meet the challenges of rise in indigenous newsprint prices over the past few months.       

Observing that the root of the problem appeared to be the current difficulties in imports on account of freight increases and transport bottlenecks, Shah said "this situation is being used to reap windfall gains through a tendency among some local manufacturers to cartelize and ask for unreasonable price increases".        

"This is indeed upsetting, because all of us have nurtured the indigenous newsprint industry by ensuring use of local newsprint despite quality problems in terms of productivity, wastage and runnability in the printing machines," he said.