"In the world scenario, the total turnover of packaging industry is about USD 550 billion where Indian share is about USD 24.6 billion per annum.
"The annual growth rate of this sector is about 15 per cent per annum and it is expected that annual turnover of Indian packaging industry will touch USD 32 billion by 2025," Natchiappan said after laying foundation stone of new educational complex and international packaging centre in here.
Indian Institute of Packaging (IIP), which works under the administrative control of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, now plans to start a 4-year degree programme in packaging technology and management from 2015.
The courses to be offered are a 4-year BTech, followed by an MTech, a research programme and Phd. All will come under the aegis of a university, proposed to be in Mumbai and it will come up within the current Five Year Plan, Natchiappan said.
IIP director N C Saha said, "Our students end up working in the end-user industry. There are about 22,000 companies who need packaging professionals. The packaging education hence needs to be more engineering oriented. The BTech programme will help in that regard."
Natchiappan said India needs to go back to its own rich and ancient practices of packaging.
"If you look at packaging design in rural India, its very compelling as everything is natural. India can become a technology transfer driven country by rejuvenating the use of agricultural by-products for packaging. India has the potential to be a world leader in packaging and innovation going forward," he said.