Chemical industry running at only 25 percent capacity is in trouble

- Antenna - Vivek Mehta

- The export money made by the chemical industry will get stuck in Europe including Brazil, the economic situation will deteriorate, NPA will increase.

The chemical industry is struggling. Since Gujarat's chemical industry has been running at barely 20 to 25 percent capacity for the last six to eight months, a situation has arisen that a number of units associated with the industry have to downsize. This is the situation for the last six months. Secondly, since China has imposed anti-dumping duty from 20 to 80 percent on chemicals exported from India, India's exports have come to a standstill. Third, China has stopped releasing consignments of goods sent to China. As a result billions of rupees of the chemical industry have been trapped. In Gujarat, the chemical units with a capacity of 1000 tonnes are also almost closed now.

About 7000 to 8000 chemical units of Gujarat are in Chhatral, Kadi, Naroda, Odhav, Vatwa, Nandesari, Padra, Ankleshwar Dahej, Vapi, Sarigam, Khambhat and the condition of the chemical industry has deteriorated. Now they are doing business only on old income. If this situation does not change in six months, many of these units will not be in a position to repay their loan money.

The daily 30 lakh liters of polluted liquid coming in Naroda Common Effluent Treatment Plant has reduced to around 10 lakh litres. The condition of the chemical units is so bad that they cannot even pay the charges to process and discharge the contaminated water to the common effluent treatment plant. On the other hand, chemicals are used extensively in India's textile industry. Currently, as the textile industry is also running soft, the demand for textiles has also reduced completely and as a result, the distress of the chemical industry has increased. The earlier Ughrani with them has also stopped.

China does not miss a single opportunity to break the chemical industry of India and Gujarat. Pigment green and pigment blue were imported by China. Suddenly China has started its 1000 ton plant. In contrast, consignments of pigments exported from Gujarat are not released. The Chinese importers are talking about releasing the consignment only after giving it to the importers who have imposed 20 to 80 percent dumping duty on it. This has broken the back of the exporters of pigments. Apart from pigments, anti-dumping duty has also been imposed on other chemicals. As a result demand has collapsed at the local level as well. The manufacturing cost of H-Acid, which is considered as the most important raw material for manufacturing dyes in the chemical industry, is Rs. 500, no one is ready to take the same H-acid at the price of 350 today.

In this situation, the government has to bring the scheme of production link incentive brought for active pharmaceutical ingredients to save the chemical industry. Second, the government should create a corporation. GIDC, GPCB, GUVNL, Water Department should be represented in it. Until that happens, the bye bye China game will continue and the chemical industry will continue to suffer. The government should also decide how much to produce which chemical by conducting market research. If there are such restrictions, it can be monitored that many people do not produce too much of the same product. Also, the government can guide the chemical industry by researching what can be done to reduce the dependency on China. Rs. 300 worth of H-acid Rs. 1800 reached the price, so as its production collapsed, today the price of H-acid collapsed and there is no taker.