THE WORK OF THE FOREST DEPARTMENT IN INDIA. 4,9 



timber are available they cannot at present be extracted at suffic- 

 iently cheap rates. To overcome this difficulty the paper 

 maker has had to resort to importing wood-pulp, which is ex- 

 pensive, and to preparing his own half-stuff from grass and 

 waste products, thus combining the art of paper making with 

 that of preparing pulp from indigenous raw materials. 



The largest paper mills in India belong to the Titaghur 

 Paper Mill Co., Ld., who run two mills, one at Titaghur and the 

 other and newer mill at Kankinara, with a combined outturn 

 of over 15,000 tons of paper per annum. The next most import- 

 ant paper mill with an outturn of 6,700 tons of paper is situated 

 at Raneeganj, some 120 miles from Calcutta, on the East 

 Indian Railway, and is owned by the Bengal Paper Mill Co., 

 Ld. The third largest mill in India is at Lucknow, with an out- 

 turn of about 2,500 tons of paper per annum, and is owned by 

 the Upper India Couper Paper Mill Co., Ld. The only mill 

 working in Western India is situated near Poona; it has a 

 capacity of a little over 1,000 tons of paper per annum and is 

 owned by the Deccan Paper Mill Co., Ld. There also exists a 

 paper mill in the Gwalior State, which is not working at 

 present. 



The present demand for paper is supplied by the mills 

 mentioned above, by imports, and to a small extent by hand- 

 made paper prepared locally. Of the total demand, the Indian, 

 paper mills produce, in normal times, about 25,000 tons, which 

 during the war has risen to nearly 30,000 tons, owing to the 

 difficulty and high cost of importing paper. The imports of 

 paper and paste boards into India in 1914-15, exclusive of note- 

 paper and envelopes, amounted to 51,390 tons, valued at 

 709,372, or including note-paper, at a total of 879,298. The 

 demand for paper in India may therefore be put at about 

 75,000 tons per annum, of which India supplies one-third. 



Turning now to the question of paper-pulp, we find that 

 India imported no less than 13,250 tons of pulp in 1912-13, 

 that is in pre-war times, while in 1914-15 the amount fell to 

 4,630 tons owing to the prohibitive cost of obtaining the half 



