IIP Hyderabad celebrates 8th anniversary as Packaging Day

The Government of Andhra Pradesh also allotted a plot around one acre of land in heart of the city, Hyderabad at Sanath Nagar for the construction of a new building. A state-of-the-art facility was set up by IIP subsequently and then it was inaugurated by the late chief minister, YS Rajashekhar Reddy on 24th March, 2006.

Over the period of last eight years, this centre has been conducting various training programmes on packaging, testing and certification services to the industries who are involved in the export business. In addition, the Institute has also introduced a full time two-year Post Graduate Diploma Programme (PGDP) in Packaging at IIP – Hyderabad in 2011.

In order to keep the memory of inaugural day, the Hyderabad Centre of IIP took an initiative to celebrate its annual day on 24 March every year and to designate this annual day as Packaging Day. Continuing this tradition, the centre has planned to organise Packaging Day on 24 March, 2014 where the programme will be commenced in the morning at the Institute and the current batch of students will participate by way of making different posters on packaging representing their innovative ideas.

Further, members of IIP Alumni Association, Hyderabad Chapter will make technical presentation on packaging to enlighten the current students.

On the same day, the centre is also organising a meet on current trends on packaging with the leading industry members and various packagimg professionals, which will be held at Hotel Marigold, (By Green Park), Begumpet, Hyderabad.

Prof N C Saha, director, IIP and secretary general of Asian Packaging Federation, has mentioned that the annual turnover of the world packaging industry is about USD 550 billion where Indian share is about USD 24.6 billion. It is reported that the annual turnover of China is about USD 28 billion. In fact, the growth of Indian packaging industry is about 15% which is almost three times more than the growth rate of world packaging industry. He has also emphasised that almost 65% of packaging materials are consumed for food and beverages that clearly indicates about the potential of packaging for the food sector.

IIP plays a major role under this backdrop, by providing valuable human resources through its gamut of courses ranging from three-month vocational courses to full time post graduate diploma courses.

Dr (Ms) Lakshmi Kantam, director, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, has agreed to be present as chief guest to grace the occasion. Katnam has shown a keen interest to have a collaborative programme with the Indian Institute of Packaging in the field of food packaging.

RVS Ramakrishna, chairman, Signode India has mentioned that there is a tremendous potential of packaging industry especially at Andhra Pradesh because this particular state is blessed with fertile land for the production of huge quantity of fresh produces like green chilli, tomatoes, mangoes etc. In fact, the Chittoor district is famous for the export of mango pulp thereby huge quantity of packaging materials are consumed. Ramakrishna is of the view that it is important to integrate and automate various processes in the industry to boost the productivity substantially.

I have been actively involved in various activities of this centre since its inception. I feel there is a huge potential for the enhancement of activities like training, testing and consultancy services in the field of packaging. Hyderabad, being the Pharma capital of India, with the increasing demand for generic drugs being manufactured here, compliance packaging to US and regulatory requirement plays a major role.

Madhab Chakraborthy, joint director and branch head under the guidance from the experienced committee members and the active alumni members will coordinate and host the event.

The celebration of Packaging Day as a mark of annual day of this centre will be organised by the Hyderabad centre of the Institute in association with IIP Alumni, Hyderabad chapter.

Over 50 IIP alumni members who are employed in the various leading companies in Hyderabad will be attending this programme.

Chakravarthi AVPS is the director at Ecobliss India and chairman at Indian Institute of Packaging, Hyderabad