Resin Industry in India

Starting on experimental scale in 1896 resin production in India to-day has increased to 42,600 metric tonnes which is processed by three major factories and a number of small units. So far only chir pine is tapped. The blue pine and Khasi pine forests and a portion of chir pine forests, still remain to be tapped. The industry can now be sub-divided as resin industry, rosin and turpentine industry, turpentine derivatives industry (of which the Camphor factory is already established at Bareil1y) and the rosin derivatives industry, which is yet to be established. In spite of the expansion of the industry, it needs modernization and improvement in almost all its stages, i.e., in the method of tapping resin, its packing and transport, in the distillation process and various operations in the handling of resin, rosin and turpentine in the factories. The establishment of rosin derivatives industry should not be further delayed. The cost of production of resin and its products needs to be reduced to compete with international price and to increase exports. The research on various aspects of resin industry, particularly for increasing yield of resin per tree, improvement in the distillation process and synthesis of rosin and turpentine into various organic compounds needs to be intensified and research centres need to be developed.