Scaling up of manufacturing facilities, global partnerships for technology adoption and strong industry-academia partnerships to fuel indigenous innovation remain the keys to widen the geographical footprint of Indian speciality chemicals industry. This came to fore at the recent E-conference titled, "Indian Speciality Chemicals: Opportunities Galore" hosted by Indian Chemical News.

India has all the ability to beat China in green chemicals if we start working towards it, believes Prof. Dr. R. K. Khandal, President - R&D, India Glycols. He goes on to cite how Indian drug and intermediates companies had to shut their facilities during the 1980s due to lack of price competitiveness to the Chinese products. “Even today the 80% of the medicine and API comes from manufacturers in China. The dye industry, textile industry, and feedstock industry, all are dependent on base material that comes from China. How can we emerge as a strong alternative? That’s the real issue we must be tackling on a priority basis. From policy level to execution, we need people who have deep expertise. For example, NITI Aayog should have somebody who can advise from the chemical industry perspective. In academia, teaching methods and courses should be blended with industrial experience.”

As per Prof. Khandal, the government needs to cut down on bureaucratic red tape and treat renewable chemical manufacturers as special. “Government must go full blast on providing incentives for 2G conversions on the pattern of grain conversion to ethanol. Indian companies must collaborate with international technology partners to set up 2G facilities in India. If a global company like Clariant can set up big plants in Romania and China with the support of their governments, why can’t more than 50 distilleries in India adopt 2G conversion? Through this approach, not only will we reduce the import bill of petrol, we can also double the income of our farmers.”

Samir Somaiya, CMD, Godavari Biorefineries calls for development of all kinds of competencies among people instead of just a few. Explaining the same, he adds, “We must develop a collective mindset towards acquiring such skills and patience for innovation, both as a society and a nation. We must not limit research only to new molecules but new technology and applications as well. Rather than working on a single area of focus, we need to work on a portfolio where we have short term, medium and long term product goals. We need to create an ecosystem driven by collaboration of academia, industry and policymakers to get it done. As far as specialty chemicals are concerned, we need to understand the customer’s needs and develop the applications accordingly. For that, we need exemplary resources who can think, work and collaborate. For the business of knowledge chemistry, collaboration is the key. This way you can exceed the customer's expectations.”

Somaiya lays thrust on collaboration and porosity. “I only imagine a world where government and industry could also have this porosity and this spirit of collaboration. With such a culture, we can certainly go very far.”

Demand for specialty chemicals is here to stay, says Kaushal Soparkar, Managing Director, Meghmani Finechem, who calls for scaling up in a focused way. “If we see ourselves as a second alternative to China, we must scale up our manufacturing considerably. India is strong in pigments and we even export Phthalocyanine pigments to China. So, there is no reason why we can’t be leaders in this segment. In a similar pattern, all manufacturers must join hands and work collectively. With such an approach, we can even go beyond set criteria. Indian Chemical Council (ICC) should play a very important role and there should be a dedicated cell for renewable chemistry and speciality chemistry in the concerned ministry.”

Making green energy available to companies will certainly bring more investment to the country, says Ashish Shinde, Country Sales Director, Croda India. “In Electric Vehicle (EV) space, the ability to handle complex mixtures and the capacity to make batteries last longer matters a lot. The full scale manufacturing of speciality chemicals such as ethylene carbonate and dimethyl carbonate could play an important role in manufacturing of such batteries.”

Sharing his set of recommendations for the industry, Ganesh Srinivasan, CEO, Resil Chemicals says, “For all the mid-sized companies today, the next few years are going to be full of opportunities to invest and scale up their speciality chemical business. This is an opportune time because market demand is high. That should be the approach. From the government side, the regulation has to be set right as currently the industry is not regulated. It will help in streamlining the unorganized sector that poses a challenge for an otherwise growing sector.”

Government must formulate a clear policy on building warehouses and storage infrastructure, feels K. Natarajan, Executive Director & Chief Operating Officer, Galaxy Surfactants. He says, “The policy with regard to global scale warehouse and storage facilities for speciality chemicals must happen as soon as possible. That will enable the industry to scale up in a much better and sustainable way.”