On paper

On paper

The Top 3
What makes these companies the best

#1 ITC Ltd-Bhadrachalam Unit
For technology leapfrog -- for eliminating toxic chlorine from the bleaching process; proactively reaching farmers, exhorting them to grow wood. Mind, water use in this plant is still too high; effluent disposal still pollutes the river.

This company's performance leaps up from 32 per cent (its 1999 rating; that deserved a two leaves award).

Now scoring 47 per cent, ITC's plant at Bhadrachalam gets the three leaves award

Technology leapfrog
In 2001, the plant invested over Rs 500 crore in a wide-ranging modernisation programme, including a shift to elemental chlorine-free (ECF) technology. The full impact of this technology change isn't fully evident yet, for the period of GRP's second assessment was 1998-2002: so it is that the company's overall score is a relatively poor 47 per cent.

This 770-tonne-a-day capacity plant is today the largest in the country. It is the first paper mill in India to have phased out the use of highly polluting elemental chlorine: now, it can sell packaging paper, which is food grade and non-toxic. It has improved energy and chemical efficiencies. By installing a lime kiln for re-burning lime sludge, it has moved towards closing its material cycle. (Usually, when sludge is burnt in the kiln, lime is regenerated. But because lime is so cheap, companies do not invest in this material-closing technology.)

This technology leapfrog has resulted in a drop in organochlorine emissions (AOX) from 2.6 kg/tonne of bleached pulp in 1998 to as low as 0.3 kg/tonne by the end of 2002. In the same period, the lime consumption in the plant reduced from 289 kg/tonne of pulp to as little as 23 kg/tonne.

Securing a raw material future
The mill currently meets about 80 per cent of its wood and bamboo requirements from farm and social forestry. It sources directly from farmers, who are encouraged to buy high quality seedlings and clones from the companiy's own nurseries. Its investment research and development has paid off, for productivity increase -- yields from euculyptus plantations on fields -- has been phenomenal: from 6 tonnes per hectares (ha) in natural forest to 200 tonnes per ha on farmland in a five year growing cycle.

The company's programme extends to 14 districts of Andhra Pradesh. Between 1998-2002, the company distributed 5.94 million seedlings annually to farmers. Its outreach to farmers has increased; from 330 farmers in 1998 to 3335 by 2002. As a result, between 1998-2002 almost 10,000 ha of land was brought under tree cultivation. This translates into a self-sufficiency index -- calculated to understand how capable a company is in securing a sustainable raw material future, based on farmer-grown wood: 33 per cent. In other words, the company can meet one-third of its current requirements from farmers.

Losing out on water
The plant could have done better. But it lost out, primarily on account of its poor water management. It scored just 29.5 per cent, a trifle when compared to the sector-best score of 49.5 per cent in overall water balance and water pollution. So even though the plant has improved its water balance -- from 139 tonnes of water for each tonne of paper produced in 1998 to 82 tonnes of water used for each tonne of paper produced in 2002 -- the plant is still way behind the global best benchmark. For a plant like this one -- producing packaging paper, writing and printing paper and using wastepaper -- the global best uses 17 tonnes of water for each tonne of product produced.

Such enormous water use also leads to a high discharge of effluents. Therefore, the next big challenge for this plant is water consumption and minimum disposal. If it shows leadership in these areas, it could well qualify for the GRP's prestigious five leaves award in the next rating.

#2 JK Paper Mills
For overall efficient resource use; for its extensive farm forestry programme to source raw material from farmers.

Mind, this winner of the first rating has slipped to second place. While others caught up, it napped on its gains: this company has not invested in a lime kiln, which would dispose off the enormous 785 kg of lime sludge it generates in manufacturing one tonne of product. It has almost halved its water consumption, but the river Nagavalli -- where it sources water from and into which it discharges its waste -- has lost its water flow.

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Measuring the present

GRP is not a mere rating. It is a tool to push for improvement. A way to leverage change. Thus the rating must reflect the current state of the industrial sector, and point to improvements. So it is that in each rating, the project reviews the entire sector -- it focusses on actual performance, and not merely environmental management strategies -- and learns about the stress points. The rating scale is then changed to reflect these priorities.

The first rating of this sector used data collected between 1995 and 1997. This rating uses a five-year database, built between 1998 and 2002. In this time, the sector went through substantial changes. Nevertheless, a lot more needs to be done so that this sector, highly resource-intensive and polluting, turns truly green.

In 1999, only one company had ISO 14001 certification and none had environmental departments. GRP also realised that pollution monitoring within the industry was very poor and data received from companies wasn't very reliable. To drive the sector to improve the system of corporate reporting in each company, GRP assigned this phase 35 per cent marks.

By 2002, this situation changed for the better. When GRP started its second-rating, it found that most companies had environmental management systems in place; many even achieved ISO 14001 certification. The first rating's effects became visible. Since assigning higher weightages to corporate policy and management systems had worked, the time had come -- so felt the team preparing the methodology for the second rating -- to push for further improvements. GRP therefore reduced the weightage assigned to the corporate environmental policy and management systems significantly -- to 10 per cent -- during the second rating.

GRP also found that profiling each company by using different indicators helped management to push for improved measurement and monitoring systems. In the second rating period, companies disclosed more data, with greater accuracy and confidence. This prompted GRP to substantially increase the weightage assigned to raw material sourcing and production phase. The idea was also to hone industry's focus from policy and management systems to actual environment improvements. This rating, therefore, better reflects actual performance. It reflects reality. And suggests the way ahead.

Tighter benchmarks
GRP also tightened the benchmarks for the pulp and paper industry during the second green rating. The benchmarks are now more specific to each mill, taking into consideration their raw material sourcing, production technology and product configuration. For instance, during the first rating the best practice for water consumption was considered as 50 tonnes per tonne of product produced for all types of chemical pulp mills. During the second rating, this changed; now, the global best practice was introduced for each type of chemical pulp mills. So, for example, the best practice for water consumption for wood-based kraft mills was reduced to 45 tonnes per tonne of product produced. Similarly the best practice for rayon grade pulp mills was reduced to 35 tonne per tonne of product produced.

A tighter score-card makes for better and deserving performers. GRP is not meant to reward laggards or average performances. It is designed to make the best shine over the rest. Thus companies that have topped the rating this time should take credit that is completely due to them.

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Progress report

It scored less in process efficiency and management. Not because the inefficiencies have increased (in fact the sector as a whole improved in all process efficiency parameters), but because the benchmarks were tightened and made more realistic during the second rating.

An environmental policy helps
The sector has made significant improvement in the enunciation and enforcement of corporate environment policy and management system.

During the first rating, only 30 per cent of the mills had a formal environment policy. This increased to 89 per cent during the second rating. Sixteen mills adopted their policies between 2000 and 2002.

In the second rating, 25 out of the 28 companies rated had an environment department. A dedicated unit-level environment team was one of the GRP's recommendations in the first rating, as very few mills had an environment department. Also, during the second ratind period, 13 of 28 companies received ISO 14001 certification; seven are in the process of receiving it. In the first rating, only one company was ISO 14001 certified. This is a major turnaround. Water: still misused
Indian paper industry was, and still is, notorious in its misuse of water. It was therefore not surprising that the first rating showed that average water use in Indian companies was as high as 200 tonnes per tonne of paper produced -- ranging from 175 tonnes, to a staggering 415 tonnes of water used per tonne product in Ballarpur industry's Shree Gopal unit.

But things have now changed for the better. From an average of 200 tonnes water consumption per tonne of paper in 1998, the average water consumption has reduced to 135 tonnes per tonne paper in 2002. This represents one-third reduction in water consumption, a significant reduction.

But still there is a long way to go. Current consumption levels remain far higher than the global best practice.

Operating in the bleach
One of the key concerns of GRP was the industry's high consumption of elemental chlorine to bleach its paper. The use of chlorine leads to high organochlorine loads in the wastewater. Globally, the industry has moved towards elemental chlorine-free technology (ECF) or total chlorine-free technology (TCF). But in 1999, all Indian mills were still using elemental chlorine bleaching.

By 2002, the scenario had not changed drastically. But GRP found that all companies had become conscious of their chlorine load and taken measures to reduce total chlorine consumption. It is great that ITC Ltd-Bhadrachalam unit now has ECF technology. Can others follow?

Where is the raw material coming from?
Paper mills are voracious users of wood and bamboo. But this need of the industry, which has decimated forests, can also become its great strength. Paper mills can generate huge employment and provide livelihood support by sourcing wood from farmers.

In this rating, raw material sourcing as an indicator shows major improvement. Industry is now increasingly sourcing more and more of its raw materials from farm and social forestry. It is investing in research and development to improve the productivity of plantations. As a result, land under the farm and social forestry programmes has doubled: from 20,000 ha in 1998 to 40,000 ha by 2004.

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The losers

GRP has a time series data of 8 years for the Indian pulp and paper sector. It is a powerful indicator of visible changes, not just in companies which have improved but also in those that have slipped. The database also allows GRP to tellingly forecast what the management has to do to improve in the years to come, and why

#11 (2 last time) The Andhra Pradesh Paper Mills Limited (APPML)
In the 1999 rating, APPML scored high because of its efforts to source raw material from farm forestry schemes, and for above average performance in using resources like chemicals and lime. The mill had a lime kiln and its effluent treatment plant was also better than the average in the sector. However as GRP pointed out then, the mill's water consumption was extremely high; it was consuming more than 200 tonnes for every tonne of paper manufactured. The energy consumption of the mill was also much higher than the sector's average

What happened this time?

Sourcing wood from farmers: The mill has continued to do well here -- consistently meeting more than 80 per cent of its requirements from farmlands. Even so, with other mills taking huge strides in securing sustainable wood sources, it has lost out. It score has slipped from 47.5 per cent to 42.4 per cent.

Process and technology: It has lost big time by not investing in its process, not improving efficiencies. The technology has largely remained the same. The mill's cooking process remains outdated. It does not have an oxygen delignification system. The bleaching sequence has not changed significantly. The only investment made by the mill has been the installation of an NCG (non-condensable gas) incineration system to reduce odour, due to pressure from the local community -- jail inmates -- whose protests reached court.

This technological backwardness shows up clearly in the mill's performance. Whether it is the consumption of chemicals for pulping, or the consumption of elemental chlorine, the mill's performance is lower than even the sector's average. Though the mill has a lime kiln, the average lime consumption at the mill is higher than the sector average for mills with a lime kiln. The energy consumption of the mill is just marginally better than the sector average.

The most serious issue, however, is its water consumption: at 200 tonnes for every tonne of paper, it is extremely high. The mill consumes more than five times the best possible practice.

What is more worrying is that the mill has not reduced its water consumption significantly since the previous rating. While most mills in the industry are looking for ways to reduce their water consumption, and even finding solutions, APPML continues to be a voracious consumer of water. All in all, the mill has lost because it has not improved its performance, while the sector as a whole has.

#13 (3 last time) Ballarpur Industries Limited (BILT)-Ballarpur Unit
The Ballarpur unit is the flagship mill of the Ballarpur group -- the largest paper manufacturer in the country. But the unit has fared very poorly -- from scoring a modest 33.4 per cent in the last rating to a low 28.6 per cent this time

This old and treasured mill was set up as early as 1953 on the banks of the river Wardha in the forested Chandrapur district of Maharashtra. Like the other big loser, the Andhra Pradesh Paper Mills, BILT-Ballarpur Unit is bogged down by the lack of technological growth, in a sector fast improving on its score. It remains highly inefficient and this shows up in its material balance.

No lime kiln: this former leader continues to generate tonnes of lime sludge, which is then disposed off on land. The company has made its waste disposal a tourist attraction by calling it a sludge garden. GRP, however, would call it the sludge graveyard. The mill consumes as much as 231 kg of lime per tonne of unbleached pulp manufactured; if it had invested in a lime kiln, it could have brought this amount down to 10-20 kg per tonne of unbleached pulp produced. Such high lime consumption means that the company generates as much as 575 kg of lime sludge per tonne of unbleached pulp it produces. Here, economics simply don't make sense. Lime is cheap and land is available. What is needed is leadership.

High and dirty water: The mill depends on an already stressed river, the Wardha, for its water - and the effect of the mill's operations on the river, and on local communities dependent on the river water, is tremendous.

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For sure Supply

The Indian pulp and paper industry stands indicted for the wide-scale decimation of forests in the country. Till the mid-1980s industry got wood at throwaway prices from vast forest lands owned by the government. As forests were denuded in their vicinity, their footprint increased; companies went far and further to procure cheap wood as raw material. But by the mid-1980s, environmental consciousness grew and the pressure mounted against deforestation.

Industry cried foul. It argued that it faced a massive raw material shortage. Since then, it has used every pressure -- and every new minister of environment and forests -- to argue that it should be given captive forest land to grow its raw material. This proposal almost made it through many times. Environmentalists stymied this idea, arguing poor people were dependent on these same remaining common lands for their subsistence needs.

This debate continues till date.

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Water

But, thankfully, the trends are changing.

Water use
Water consumption has come down significantly in large-scale Indian paper mills. In 1998, on an average, these consumed 200 tonnes of water to produce one tonne of paper; this reduced, by 2002, to 135 tonne per tonne paper. Even so, a very high level, considering that the average in US and European mills is less than 50 tonnes.

There is a significant difference in water consumption between Indian mills as well. The worst performers, West Coast Paper Mills in Dandeli, Karnataka, Rajmudary-based Andhra Pradesh Paper Mills and Yamunanagar-based Shree Gopal Unit of Ballarpur Industries Ltd still consume more than 200 tonnes water to produce one tonne of paper. In contrast, Orissa-based JK Paper Mills and Tamil Nadu Newsprint and papers, located in Karur district of Tamil Nadu, consume just about 100 tonnes water for each tonne of product produced. Still, these mills use two-three times more water than the global best practice (see graph: Great guzzlers).

The least water consuming plant in India is BILT Graphics, which uses as little as 25 tonnes of water for each tonne of its product. But since this is a non-integrated paper mill -- one that buys all its pulp to make paper -- its consumption, low as it is, should be five times lower. In other words, this plant should be a closed water loop plant, one that does not discharge any effluent.

The water-tech tradeoff
The Indian pulp and paper industry uses dirty and old technology, arguing that it operates in a poor country. But it fails to take into account the real costs of such posturing.

For instance, most Indian mills use elemental chlorine for pulp bleaching, because it is the cheapest way to bleach pulp. But chlorine is also highly polluting. Moreover, a process that uses elemental chlorine requires 5-10 times more water than contemporary elemental chlorine free (ECF) and total chlorine free (TCF) technology. So, the average water consumption in the bleach plant of Indian mills during 1998-2002 was about 60 tonnes per tonne bleached pulp produced, 12 times higher than the global best practice of 5 tonnes per tonne of product, using non-chlorine technology.

In such a scenario, it is imperative that industry go for the water-tech trade-off: even as the paper-producing process becomes cleaner, it will become more water-efficient.

Regulations: a hindrance
The current pollution regulations are weak and often meaningless. Either regulations do not exist or if they do, they are not designed carefully enough. All in all, it means that even if a mill was to meet the current Indian regulatory standards for pollution, it would not be sufficient to protect the environment. Take the following instances:

The AOX effect
The use of elemental chlorine and chlorine compounds to bleach paper generates toxic organochlorines, collectively known as 'adsorbable organic halides' or AOX. Around 10 per cent of atomic chlorine in chlorine compounds is released as AOX. Over 300 compounds have been identified including highly toxic dioxins, furans, chlorinated phenols, acids, benzene. These identified compounds account for less than 10 per cent of all organochlorines in the effluents; the majority remains unknown. These are toxic and do not break down easily in nature. As a result, regulators across the world are setting tough standards to monitor AOX.

But in India, regulation remains both lax and unscientific.

The AOX standard here is 2 kg per tonne of product, 3-25 times higher than the global best. AOX is released mainly from the bleaching operation of the plant and should be monitored in terms of bleached pulp produced by the mill, and not the paper produced. In other words, a mill using wastepaper or market pulp or unbleached pulp -- or using higher amount of fillers -- during papermaking will have significantly higher paper production than the paper it could have produced from the bleached pulp. In other words, such a mill can easily meet the AOX standard by merely increasing its paper production and without making any improvements in the bleach plant.

Worse, in Indian mills, AOX is measured in treated effluent. But it is well known that AOX gets transferred and removed in the sludge of the effluent treatment plant, and that AOX in treated wastewater is always lower than that in the untreated wastewater. But Indian regulators do not measure AOX in the untreated effluent. Nor have they set any standard for ETP sludge. The result: the current AOX standard can only account for one third of the AOX the mills actually discharge.

Colour
The discharge of coloured wastewater is a major cause of conflict between local communities and paper mills. In the paper industry, overall, colour is mostly an aesthetic pollution problem. But it does obstruct sunlight and this affects the aquatic food chain.

The colour of the pulp and paper mill's wastewater comes from lignin in the raw materials. Therefore, till the time Indian mills continue to use chlorine-based bleaching methods, the only option to remove colour is to use activated carbon and membrane filtration technology, which is expensive.

But as yet, there is no regulation for colour at a central level, which would provide the impluse for proper technology choices. Only the Andhra Pradesh state pollution board has set a standard for colour discharge.

Wastewater for irrigation
Indian mills prefer to discharge their wastewater on land. A good idea, but done for the wrong reasons in a wrong way. The use of sewage and industrial effluent for irrigation has a long history. Soil can act as a biochemical reactor in treating wastewater. It also means that water can be reused -- a fact that needs to be promoted, but carefully, to ensure that the use of effluent water does not destroy the land.

Indian paper mills prefer to dispose their effluents on land -- in other words, use the wastewater for irrigation -- because the standards for disposal on land are much lower than the standards for disposal in rivers. For instance, though the BOD standards for river disposal is 30 mg/l, it is 100 mg/l for land disposal. Companies save money by partially treating the effluent and disposing it on land.

The fact is that there is nothing wrong in promoting the reuse of partially treated wastewater for irrigation, provided that regulations are carefully designed for usage on land, which is a media different from water. Therefore, given that most Indian mills still use elemental chlorine for bleaching, neither the government nor the companies have considered the impact of organochlorines on the quality of agricultural produce.

Also, if industry is to be given options to reduce their costs of effluent treatment by allowing a reuse of partially treated effluents, they will be forced to clean the quality of effluent in the plant itself.

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What people know

As yet, people living near paper mills have not been at peace with their polluting neighbour. Not only are there conflicts, but clearly the local community in many cases has been able to assert its demand for the industry to clean up or close down. It would not be wrong to say that in this higher form of regulation, if anything, has pushed industry to improve its performance. The stick has never come from central or state pollution control boards. It has been local pressure; people have asserted their demands, mostly through the legislative system.

Paper mills, because of their tremendous demand for water and wood, are invariably located in areas where money is scarce, but natural resources in terms of water and raw material are abundant. This disproportionate power system works for a while to keep the lid on things, but as the water intake in the paper mill continues, the river begins to dry up. Simultaneously, the pollution increases, for the river no longer possesses the ability to assimilate and dilute the waste; and tensions increase.

The local community, the local pollution board, the local doctors, NGOs and others are important sources for information for GRP. Their knowledge and perception is an important gauge to judge the veracity of the data collected through company sources. A "green inspector" -- a volunteer with GRP -- visits each factory area to collect this feedback. What we learn shows, again, the way ahead.

The problems are many: the point of discharge of the effluent is downstream of the point from where the mill sources water. This is an irritant to the local community. The high water requirement of paper mills means that local communities and the industry often compete for an increasingly scarce commodity. Parched Indian summers see heightened tensions, as rivers dry up and the water table drops. If conflicts over water weren't enough, the malodorous gases released during the chemical pulping process add to the grouse of local residents. The vast quantities of solid waste generated by paper mills tops it all. The industry is responsible for huge mounds of lime sludge that often characterise a town with a paper mill in the vicinity. The tensions between the mill and the local community are not eased by the fact that the pollution is very visible -- groundwater contamination, coloured river water, increasing water scarcity, the typical "rotten egg"-like smell from kraft mills and mounds of lime sludge.

These issues, and more, are reflected in the GRP inspectors' report. But one state that stands out as a problem place is Karnataka. The local community indicted all three paper mills of the state: Harihar Polyfibres, located in Havari, was indicated for the pollution of river Tungabhadra; Mysore Paper Mill, located in Bhadravati, was indicted for water scarcity and water pollution in river Bhadrawati; and West Coast Paper Mills, located in Dandeli, was indicated for polluting river Kali. It is very clear that this reflects not just the problem of increasing water scarcity and an organised local population but the fact that the regulatory body, the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board is perceived to be weak and compromised.

Pollution boards versus local communities
When GRP inspectors asked the local pollution control board to provide information about the paper mill, they provided a positive picture of the paper mills. Their data showed that paper mills had been getting the consent to operate from the local boards (see graph: The go-ahead).

This came as a stark contrast to the perception of the local community. The same companies which were meeting standards to the satisfaction of regulatory agencies were under protest from local people. Of the 28 mills rated, seven had one or more cases filed against them by the local community on pollution.

But even here, there is a noticeable change between the two rating periods. GRP received must less criticism from local communities about the mills in the 2004 rating, as against the 1999 rating. This clearly reflects the improvements made by some mills to deal with their pollution problems and to improve their relationship with communities. For instance, there was strong dissatisfaction against the Orient Paper Mills in 1999, but as the mill stopped discharging the coloured effluent into the river Sone -- by diverting it for agriculture on its own land -- its relationship improved.

Protest power: shutdown
The Mavoor unit of the Grasim Industries and South India Viscose (SIV), both rayon grade pulp mills, had to close down largely because of complaints from the local community regarding their coloured effluent disposal.

In the case of the Mavoor unit, located on the banks of the Chaliyar river in Kozhikode district of Kerala, local protests against pollution forced the state government to form a high powered committee to recommend action, which suggested several steps. The state pollution control board gave the mill a year to comply and the mill management decided to close down.

SIV discharged its effluents into the river Bhawani, and soon found itself in the midst of controversy. Public protests put pressure on the local pollution control board to step in. Legal action was initiated and the mill was forced to upgrade its pollution control equipment. It imported technology from Linde in Germany for effluent treatment. But the combined effect of high investments and protest proved too much and it finally closed down in October 2001.

Protest power: transformation
Changing colours
In the 1999 rating, the Orient Paper Mills at Amlai was in big trouble. Local people were angry; the discharge of wastewater from the mill into the Sone river was killing fish and affecting cattle. Villagers living downstream were protesting against the untreated effluent discharge. Cases were filed in court and people protested outside the factory as well. The main problem was with the bleach plant effluent generated by the mill, which was almost black in colour and had a foul odour. The mill hired National Environmental Engineering Research Institute to plan and implement disposal of the coloured bleach-plant effluent on land. This system was implemented and the bleach plant effluent is used for crop cultivation. The pollution load of the mill has come down substantially. While problems still remain, because the Sone is an extremely stressed river in a water scarce region, the positive efforts of the factory were reflected in community perceptions during the second phase of the rating.

Odour and community
Bad smell is the hallmark of a kraft pulping process -- malodorous gases, including hydrogen sulphide, and mercaptans -- assault the senses. People living near the mill resent its odour and in the case of the Andhra Pradesh Paper Mills they made sure that the smell disappeared.

The inmates of the Rajamundry Central Jail are the mill's neighbours. They found the bad smell, which the mill released four or five times a day, unbearable. They filed a case against the mill for odour. The Andhra Pradesh high court returned a verdict in favour of the prisoners and directed the mill to control odour. The mill complied and an odour incineration system was commissioned in October 2002. This is the only mill in the country with such a system.

Failed by regulations
It is clear that the regulatory standards are failing people. It is also clear that unless regulation is designed to take into account the characteristics of a specific case, it will be impossible to ensure that there is no adverse impact on the environment and on the people who live in the vicinity of mills.

Therefore, regulation may be designed for monitoring the total pollution load of the mill, but as it does not take into account the specific carrying capacity of the environment, into which the waste is being discharged, the waste can still be a problem. And it is.

Take the issue of water discharge by these plants. The wastewater regulations are designed for discharge into river or waterbodies. But they are designed for a river or waterbody which has adequate assimilative capacity; in other words, can dilute the wastewater. But with rivers getting more stressed, these regulations do not work. The inevitable result is pollution, which affects people. Then, too, regulations are not designed to take into account what affects people. There is no regulation for colour, no regulation for odour.

Given this situation, people living around the mill are a possible barometer to judge its performance. Their view can be coloured by local petty politics, their view can also be biased in favour of the mill because of its clout. But on the whole, they provide the push for industries to improve. They are the trigger for change.

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Sunset sector?

The pulp and paper industry is an environmentalist' nightmare. It can easily eat away a nation's forest. It uses huge amounts of equally precious water to 'cook and clean' its raw material, enough to put every other water-guzzler to shame. To make its product 'fair and lovely' it puts in high amounts of bleach, which then emerges as toxins in the equally huge amounts of wastewater and sludge it discharges. It produces bad smells and its effluent is coloured suspiciously.

For precisely these reasons, any change for the better is good news. The comparison of the 1999 and 2004 ratings shows that this unenvironmental juggernaut is beginning to amend its ways. But even more exciting is the possibility of future, greater news.

But for this, its leaders will have to do much more. They will have to bite the bullet, as the saying goes, to really show how Indian industry can be the true-growth sector, how it can break free of the growth-without-jobs syndrome that plagues industry today. It can make possible the industrial growth model the world is seeking: a model that enjoins the fate of small and poor landholders to the future of large and globally competitive industry. This is a model which uses the labour opportunities in the informal and agricultural sectors to provide true and sustainable development -- putting money and resources in the hands of the poor.

GRP's analysis clearly shows that trees planted for the pulp and paper sector can provide a fascinating model of growth. Roughly 1.1 million ha of land is required to supply the required 5 million tonnes of raw material industry currently requires. This, in turn, could provide employment to over 0.55 million farming families in growing and harvesting wood in a sustainable manner. India could easily become a pulp surplus country if this works. But it requires industry laggards to match the best practices of their competitors.

Then there is the other opportunity, collecting and recycling the millions of tonnes of wastepaper India generates. But for this, industry will have to make the millions of kabbadiwallas -- informal waste collectors -- its sourcing managers. What a grand alliance this could be.

What of the vexing water challenge? Answers exist. Remember, this sector does not take away water from the hydrological cycle. It uses water in its process and discharges almost all the water as effluent. Therefore, the key is to improve the quality of effluent so that it can be reused again to irrigate crops or for other purposes.

For this, industry will have to learn that pollution control does not mean building more effluent treatment plants. It must become water-prudent. Then it needs to carefully segregate the clean water used for processing, from the polluted and coloured effluent. One big technology leapfrog would be to transform from chlorine to non-chlorine bleaching, so that even the polluted water could be reused.

Few realise the chlorine challenge is related to the water challenge. We must promote the reuse of effluent for irrigation because it makes sense. But we cannot allow effluent water soaked in chlorine compounds to be used. Currently the regulations for disposal of effluents on land are pathetic. Therefore, if the effluent of this water intensive industry has to become a reusable resource, much more will need to be done.

The problem is that standards are made for the country as a whole. In other words, regulations are made without a ear to the ground and an eye for detail. They ignore the ground reality in which the industry functions. The water standards are a classic example. They are designed for discharge into water bodies, assuming that the water body has assimilative capacity. But with the uptake of water increasing, there is less water in our rivers. In this situation, when a paper mill discharges its massive effluent, the standards are not worth the paper they are written on. The industry can meet all regulatory standards in the country, but it will still not satisfy its neighbours, who live downstream of its wastewater discharge point.

Which brings to the the challenge of industry's relations to local communities. Industry must realise that they are the true barometers of its performance. It is they who have provided the trigger for change. They have protested against coloured water, foul smell, mounds of lime sludge. Sometimes they have won. Their victory has paved the way for change.

As has, to some extent, the Green Rating Project. When Anil Agarwal designed it, he must have known its potential to work democracy, to bring change. We believe we have done something to be the check and balance to industrialisation that Anil talked about. But we will leave you be the judge.

Story anchored by chandra bhusan , co-ordinator, Green Rating Project. Inputs from Monali Zeya Hazra (assistant co-ordinator), Radhika Krishnan, Nivit Kumar Yadav and Ramya Vishwanath