Paper companies with their toes still on the panic button are eyeing the budget with hope. But April and May have tormented the industry with the spate of discounts only increasing despite the feeling that the industry has got better days ahead.

Sinar Mas has offered Rs 5,000 per tonne discount on uncoated paper costing Rs 31,000. West Coast Paper Mills offered Rs 6,500 per tonne discount. Centurypaper offered discounts ranging from Rs 3,000 to Rs 3,500. These discounts were offered under various heads - trade discount, additional discount, quantity rebate, cash discount, etc. According to industry sources it is difficult to arrive at the final prices from the invoiced value. For private mills went one step further and gave credit notes on the final discounted price! The end price is therefore anybody's guess and differing from dealer to dealer.

According to industry reports, stockholding for various companies during March-April gave rise to sufficient alarm and continuance of discount schemes. Sinar Mas had 8,000 tonnes, Hindustan Paper Corporation 32,000 tonnes, Century Paper 8,000 tonnes, JK 3,000 tonnes, Seshasayee and TNPL faring better with 2,000 and 1,000 tonnes respectively.

Century Paper is running riot with its discounts and causing rising discomfort not only to itself (Rs 3 crore loss a month) but to other paper companies as well it is learnt.

Sinar Mas with its 90 per cent brightnessof paper has made serious inroads in the maplitho segment causing a dent in JK's and Ballarpur Industries' markets. Sinar Mas has also made inroads into the computer stationery and the balance sheet segments, but is nevertheless not doing well. BILT and JK are under pressure now in this segment and are dumping. West Coast paper Mills has lost quite a bit of the notebook segment to BILT. TNPL which has a good share in computer stationery, issue printing, exercise notebook and copier segments is now facing stiff competition from West Coast paper Mills, Seshasayee Paper and JK. The story is depressingly similar all around.

International prices of writing and printing paper are also looking up, though the comfort zone is still eluding domestic players. Russia is offering writing and printing paper at $580 per tonne and Asian countries around $650 per tonne.

In the newsprint front there is so much less to cheer. Even though Canadian prices have gone up to $610 per tonne from $590, Korea is offering newsprintat $470 per tonne, causing a flutter in the domestic industry. About 30,000 tonnes have already landed in the country. Local players are keeping their fingers crossed that such prices would not be sustained and secretly hoping that Korea goes bankrupt!

The domestic industry has anyway presented a charter of demands asking a roll-back of import tariff to World Trade Organisation bound rates. This would be 40 per cent (from 20 + 5%) and 25 per cent for newsprint (from 10%). Other demands to save the situation from further deterioration is an anti-dumping duty on newsprint as recommended by the designated authority in ministry of commerce; cancelling of notification allowing imports of newsprint with more than 8 per cent ash content at zero duty to prevent clandestine imports; exemption of import duty on paper grade pulp and waste paper; reduce excise duties on paper and paper boards; exemption on service tax for transportation; correct anomaly in import duty on inputs and intermediates for the paper industry(chemical, machine clothing, spares) which should be lower than the duty on paper; allow paper industry to develop industrial plantation on degraded forest lands to overcome fibre shortage.