Sir,
I am very glad that my honourable friend has brought forward this adjournment
motion which enables the Government to place before the House the facts with
regard to the paper situation in this country. Sir, in the speeches that have
been delivered in this House, some very harsh things have been said about the Government.
The Government is accused of being callous, of being selfish, of having no
consideration for the educational institutions of this country. I merely
propose to place before the House the facts as they are, the reasons which led
the Government to issue this order, the steps that the Government has taken in
order to ease the situation immediately and for the future. Sir, I120 would like to begin by pointing out to
the House that there appears to be a certain misunderstanding about the140 nature of the order which has been
issued by the Government. Member after member has risen in this House to160 suggest that the order passed by the
Government in fact means that the Government claims 90 per cent of the paper
production for itself. I would like to tell the House that that is a complete
misunderstanding. The order passed by the Controller of Paper is not a
requisition order. It is an order which in turn says that the manufacturers of
paper shall be bound to hand over to the Government 90 per cent of the paper
that they produce. 240 The
order is what I may call a freezing order, and I want to tell the House that the
difference that I am making is a real difference. It is not a difference
without distinction, because the order280
tells the paper-makers that they shall not sell more than 10 per cent of their
production to the public. It does not in turn say that they shall deliver 90
per cent of the paper to the Government. 320
I think that is a very fundamental and a very real distinction which the House
should bear in mind.
The
second point which I want the House to bear in mind is that the order is served
on the paper mills. It is360
not served on the stockists, who have a large number of stocks of paper already
in their godowns. Secondly, it is still possible for the public to satisfy its
requirements by getting such paper as is still available in the stocks which
have been stored and hoarded by stockists before the order was passed. The
third thing which420 I wish to
remind the House about this order is that it is possible under the order, as it
is framed, for the Controller of Paper to permit the mills to sell more than 10
per cent. There is no bar, there is no impediment, no obstacle placed if the
Controller of Paper, notwithstanding the order that has been passed on the480 5th November, finds that it is possible
for him to release for public consumption more than 10 per cent of the paper.
It is still open to him to do so. Having explained to the House what is
actually involved in the order issued by the Government, I would like to apprise
the House of the immediate circumstances which compelled the Government to pass
this order. Briefly, the facts are these. In the first six months that is, 560 from April to September, our demand for
paper, which is put forth by the Central Stationery Office, amounted to 34,000
tons. It was found that the mills had already delivered about 16,000 tons of
paper to the Government on behalf of the600
Central Stationery Office. The House will bear in mind that we had entered into
a contract with the paper mills for supplying us 26,000 tons. If the Honourable
Members enter into a little arithmetic, it will be found640 that as a result of our calculations for
the first six months it was found that we had only 9,000 tons to get under our
contract from the paper mills and had to run six months yet. Consequently, what
the Government did was this. The Government revised its estimate in the light
of the circumstances that had been disclosed during700 the previous six months. The second
thing that the Government did was to consolidate the method of requisitioning
paper. Here I would720 like to
tell the House that before the order was passed, there were two methods by
which demands for paper on behalf of the Government were put forth. One way was
the Central Stationery Office demand, which was a demand on behalf of the
Central Government, and the provinces of Bengal, Assam, and the North-West
Frontier Province and the Central Provinces. The other was the non-Central
Stationery office demand, made on behalf of the provinces which presented800 their demands independently of the
Central Stationery Office. Then there were Indian States, Security Printing,
Supply Department, and non-State Railways. It was found that these two
independent methods of requisitioning paper for the Government created a great
deal of difficulty in840
arriving at an accurate estimate of the total demand for paper, and
consequently the first step that was taken was to consolidate these two
channels of demand into one single channel, and the whole matter is now
concentrated in the hands of the Central Stationery Office. As I told the House
previously, when the situation was found to have grown somewhat perilous on
account of the excessive use of paper, and practically overdrawing over the
contract amount, we revised the estimates and centralised the demands.
On
the basis of the production of the mills during that year, it was calculated
that the mills would produce 48,000 tons during October and March. It will be
found that the Government demand960
of 42,000 tons represented 87 per cent of the mills production during the six
months. Roughly it was 90 per cent, 980
and that is the reason why the order maintained 90 per cent as the figure. Now,
the House will understand why it became necessary in November to issue this
order. I want to tell the House the measures that the Government has taken in
order to increase production of paper. Of course, as the House will realise, it
is not possible for the Government to help the paper mills in the importation
of additional machinery in order to enable them to increase their production.
The difficulty of shipping is quite well known and it is quite beyond the
powers1080 of the Government
to do anything in the matter. Consequently, we have to work out whatever we can
to increase the production of paper within the means which are available to us.
I would like to draw the attention of the House1120
to three things which the Government has done and which could be usefully
referred to as measures taken to increase production. The Government has appointed a paper
production officer, whose duty it is to find out ways and means by which
production of paper could be increased. Secondly, the Government has cut out
non-essential luxury varieties of paper and has restricted the Government
requirements to only a few easily manufactured standard qualities. Thirdly, the
Government has been dealing1200
with each mill separately to find out what sort of paper each particular mill,
having regard to its machinery and its equipment, can produce to the largest
extent. It is estimated at present that as a result of the measures taken to
increase production, the increase would be about 12,000 tons. The next thing
that the Government has done in1260
order to ease the situation is to impose cuts, arbitrary cuts, on the demands
of the various departments made for paper. 1280
Now
I would like to tell the House what these cuts are. Provincial and State
requirements have been cut down arbitrarily by 10 per cent, which gives a
saving of 950 tons. Secondly, so far as the Central Government is concerned,
the original estimates for paper presented by the various departments which spend
paper, have been revised and cut down to an appreciable extent. As the House
will notice, the original estimates of the departments to which I have referred
came to 34,000 tons, while the revised estimates come to 28,000 tons. The House
will be pleased to notice that, by the cut imposed on the provincial and Indian
State requirements, a saving has been effected of 950 tons. 1400 Add to that 12,000 tons obtained by
revising the estimates of the different departments and the total comes to 12,950
tons. Now, compare this in the light of the paper that is consumed in India.
There are no exact figures1440
nor is it possible to obtain any exact figures. But the Government has shown the
approximate figures that the annual consumption of paper in India was about one
lakh of tons. For six months, it comes to 50,000 tons. As the House will
remember, 10 per cent of that is already left to the public under the orders
issued by the Controller of Printing. That gives the public 5,000 tons. I was
going to refer next to the measures that we have taken in order to avoid waste.
As my time is up, I do not wish to go into those details. I can send them to
the press, if that is the view of the House. The next thing that I would like
to mention in the House is what we propose to do for the next year. For the
next year the estimate is about 70,000 tons, out of which we have fixed the
quota of every department1600
which needs paper.
