HANDMADE PAPER PROJECT REPORT

The hand paper industry is one of the important industries under the village industries sector. The industry has over 3260 units producing over Rs.534.56 crore worth of paper and paper products, providing direct employment to more than 37,000 persons in the rural areas out of which 50% are women and also indirect employment to another 10000 people.
Service requirements
1.   Water                   1000 lit./ day
2.   Power                   80 H.P.
3.   Building                2,000 sq. ft.
4.   Drying shed          3000 sq. ft.
5.   Employment          20 persons/ shift

Methodology and process of manufacturing Hand Made Paper

 Cellulosic materials like waste cotton, waste banana stem, mat grass, Palmarosa grass and other agriculture residues are to be collected. These materials have to be collected from different villages. Mixed fibresraw materials are sorted out to remove any non fibrous and metallic portion.

 Cutting
 Sorted fibrous raw material is cut into small pieces (1-3 cm). A handmade chaff cutter can be used for this purpose.

Dusting/ washing
 The cut pieces are dusted and washed to remove dust and dirt particles. The dusting can be done by mechanical duster or by beating the material by hand.

Digestion
 The fibrous raw materials are cooked with caustic soda for 2-3 hours in mild steel vessel (Digester). The pulp is then washed thoroughly with water to get rid of traces of alkali and dissolved matter

 Pulping
 The strips are then put into a treatment vessel and processed with microbes. The bio treated strips are then fed into a beater along with water and sized additives to form a pulp type mixture. This unbleached pulp may need to be treated with non-polluting bleaching agents. The chemicals (rosin and alum) and colour may be added to improve the pulp quality as per requirement.

 VAT processing
 The pulp mixture is spread on a net, which enables the water present to settle down and form a paper sheet. These paper sheets are blotted on a woolen/ gada cloth. Similarly other paper sheets are also mounted and eventually all the sheets are collected in a heap.

 Cylinder Mould Processing
 Cards and boards are processed through cylinder mould machine for pulp formation on to the wire-mesh and then in cylinder mould drum.

 Sun light drying
 Water is drawn out from these sheets with the help of a hydraulic press and then these sheets are detached for the cloth and left to dry in sun light.

Calendering
 After drying these sheets are passed through two heavy rollers or and calendering in between two metal sheets for polishing the papers or boards.

 Cutting
 Lastly the sheet is cut to the required size and shape as required for marketing. The paper thus made can be further converted into bags, box, files and pads etc. depending on the order to be received to the unit. Three production units can supply 25% of paper and cards to the conversion unit. Depending on the market order the unit can operate on converting paper into various products.

 Equipments
 The equipments and machines required includes (i) Rag Choppers (ii) Beaters (iii) Pulp tanks (iv) calendar machines (v) Agitators (vi) Hydraulic Press (vii) Cylinder mould, vat power driven machine etc.

 Economics
 For producing, 40 tonnes of hand made paper annually the capital investment required is about Rs. 4 lakhs and the working capital Rs. 1.25 lakhs. The unit is expected to earn a profit of Rs. 1 lakhs per year and employ 20 persons.

Collection of cellulosic material
 Sorting out for quality control
 Beater pulping   processing with water (30 minutes)
 Sizing with natural additives (rosin, Alum, China clay, Talcum power)
 Cylinder mould processing          Vat processing
(VAT/ AUTOVAT method)
 Paper boards/ sheets                              Blotting on Cloth
 Sun light drying  Screw pressing
 Paper cutting                                         Calendering/ polishing
 Packaging                                              Market supply

 Production conservation Market supply

 Advantages Process in Paper Making
 In conventional paper making process, cellulose is obtained from trees (deforestation) after chemical and mechanical treatment with the result that only 30-40% of the stating material is useful for paper making, whereas in MCRC paper process 85-90% of cellulose is obtained from tree usufructs, followed by microbial/ mechanical pulping by using non polluting additives and dyes from natural sources.

Project Viability/ Cost Benefit Analysis
            Production capacity                    100 kg/ day (3 ton/ month)
            Employment (regular)                 20 women/ shift
            E.B. Power                                 80 HP
            Water                                        1000 L/day
            Project cost                               Rs. 100,000

 Building 3000 sq. ft. drying shed & 2000 sq. ft. working space with thatched roof are required.

Expenditure
Raw material
(a)  (Banana stem, cotton, agri residues                           Rs.  1300.00
     130 kg / day @ Rs. 10/ kg.)
(b)  Additives (True wax, Talcum powder,                         Rs.    220.00
Starch & Alum:(for 110 kg. raw material @ Rs. 2 kg.
(c)  Labour; skilled (trained) 4 persons @ Rs. 100)              Rs.    400.00
(d)  Power charges (80 HP, 40 units @ Rs. 5)
(e)  Transport, maintenance, overheads & administration   Rs.    100.00
Total production cost / 100 kg. paper                         Rs. 2,200.00
      100 kg. paper.
            Expected sale (Rs. 40/kg.) of 100 kg.                   Rs. 4,000.00
            Net income / day                                                Rs.1,780.00

Uses:

 Under pressure of growing demand and for product diversificiation, handmade paper
manufacturing units are using materials like mesta, hemp, bagasse, etc for making
this grammage papers. Handmade paper indutry kmanufactures paper such as
drawing paper for artists, permanent document paper, dark coloured card sheets,
deckle adged stationery, exclusive greetings, varieties of fancy decorative wraps,
unique carry bags, water mark paper certificates, filter papers and pads. Insulation
paper besides other cultural grades like covers, duplicating paper and tissue paper.
These prodcuts have good demand in the domestic market and find usage in the
stationery, greeting card, packaging industry and have tremendous unexplored
potential in export markets.