REPORT OF BIS SUB COMMITTEE OF THE FEDERATION OF PAPER TRADERS’ ASSOCIATIONS OF INDIA.

Mr. Sandeep Bhargava of Paper Tradelinks, Indore and I was nominated as the member and convenor respectively of the BIS sub-committee of FPTA during the 1st Managing Committee meeting.

It took us a while to get our nomination registered at BIS due to misplaced records at BIS end because of which FPTA was not represented at BIS for last two year.

Activity 1-

BIS had invited comments on 20th July for proposed amendments to 21 IS concerned to paper.

Brief description of the proposed amendments is as under-

In all the IS related to varieties of paper a common proposal was to replace the definition of A and B category paper mills with the following-

(a) The paper and paper boards manufactured out of pulp containing not less than 60 percent by weight of pulp made from materials other than bamboo, hardwoods, softwoods and reed.

(b) Recycled paper and paper board must be made from 100 percent waste paper

In addition to above there were some proposal specific to particular IS like-

(1)  IS 1848: 2007 Writing & Printing Paper - Proposal was to discard the requisition of brightness in paper that is tinted.

(2)  12766:1997 Paper Computer - Specification - Proposal was to standardise feed hole diameter and feed hole Distance in addition to point (a) and (b) mentioned above as well as removal of brightness condition from tinted paper.

BIS had sought for comments on the above proposals by 20th August 2016 but we were late in submitting our comments due to the reasons mentioned above and we did so on 26-09-2016 wherein we have highlighted that brightness testing condition should be user specific and it is incorrect to say that brightness cannot be tested on tinted paper. Even black paper has brightness and the same can be tested.

Copy of full comments are attached to this report.

Activity 2-

BIS has proceeded to adopt several ISO standards in Indian context and had asked for comments on the following ISO-

ISO 776:2011 Pulps -- Determination of acid-insoluble ash

ISO 5269-3:2008 Pulps -- Preparation of laboratory sheets for physical testing -- Part 3: Conventional and Rapid-Köthen sheet formers using a closed water system.

ISO 11093-7:2011 Paper and board -- Testing of cores -- Part 7: Determination of flexural modulus by the three-point method

ISO 15320:2011 Pulp, paper and board -- Determination of pentachlorophenol in an aqueous extract

ISO 3781:2011Paper and board -- Determination of tensile strength after immersion in water

ISO 12192:2011Paper and board -- Determination of compressive strength -- Ring crush method

We have offered our comments on ISO 776:2011 & ISO 12192:2011.

In case of ISO 776:2011 we have brought to the notice of the Chief Scientist that the conditions can only be applied to mills using virgin pulp and not to those who are using recycled pulp.

In case of ISO 12192:2011 we have proposed to BIS to change a few internationally used terminology to Indian terminology to make it more suitable to Indian context.

It is good to see that BIS is adopting more relevant standards and brining it in Indian domain as consumers are slowly understanding newer concepts like-

(i)  Ring Crush and Edge Crush Tests for Corrugated boxes

(ii)  Wet Strength parameters in paper

(iii) Standardisation of strength parameters in cores used by paper mills to avoid losses due to crushing of core ends.

Other ISO were extremely technical and beyond the scope of this sub-committee.

We expect release of new BIS standards on above after voting in the 4th quarter of this year and the same will be forwarded to FPTA for their records.

Thanking you,

Yours faithfully

Abhishek Malani

Convenor - FPTA BIS Sub-committee.

Attached: Copy of comments sent to BIS.