Page 5 - Plastics News July 2020

This year has perceived a lot of changes and challenges for the plastic industry,
ranging from our Hon'ble Prime Minister urging the nation to give up on Single
Use Plastics, change in the import duties & what not. The plastic industry was
already under a lot of pressure and to top it, the occurrence of Covid-19
Pandemic. This came as a temporary setback for the industry and specially
MSME's, it gave a push to the Indian economy towards becoming cashless and
disrupting the flow of finances.

All this in short span, has necessitated us to take actions to be focused on
enhancement & amelioration, besides its long term initiative as per vision to
create growth opportunities for the processing segment. We had an
opportunity to interact with several key officials and Ministers in the new open
regime to present our point of view to address various issues of the Plastic
Processing Industry.
JAGAT KILLAWALA
We requested the Deputy DGFT, Mr. Nishant Suri to allow the export of face
shields. We highlighted that some of the items such as Face Shields, local
producers are manufacturing more than the total demand in India.
Therefore, we requested the government to urgently to allow exports of
excessive face shields manufactured in India.

In response to the notification by the Government of Tamil Nadu (G.O. (Ms).
No. 37, dated 05.06.2020), we shared our recommendations with the
Ministry of Forest, Environment & Climate Change (MOEFCC), Ministry of
Chemicals & Petrochemicals, CIPET & Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board,
citing some significant facts about the plastic material. We also highlighted
that Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic; the attention was directed towards
plastics focused on banning single-use variants of the materials. Therefore, we
requested the government to consider the points and revoke the amendment
to Tamil Nadu Plastic Ban notification in the best interest of the lives of the
citizens and society.

As we know, the government has proposed new EPR Framework Guidelines
for the industry. Some of us may not be fully acceptable towards the proposed
guidelines & have different opinions all together. We organized multiple
meetings with the internal committee members, plastic associations all over
India, Flexible packaging industry persons etc to put forward collaborative
recommendations and suggestions to the government.

In these trying times where businesses are shutting down and people are facing
problems, we conducted various webinars on effective topics which help the
industry people and give them a more clear view of how to move forward.

In collaboration with Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan Attorneys, we put together
a webinar on The Impact on GST, Income Tax & Customs Due to COVID-19 on
rd
3 July 2020. The key factors being, the recent developments & rulings

July 2020 5 Plastics News