Plastic Parks have emerged as an integral part of India’s strategy for managing plastic waste, promoting recycling, and supporting the chemical industry. Uttar Pradesh is the latest to get a Plastic Park, in Gorakhpur. In over a decade between 2013 and 2022, a total of 10 Plastic parks received approval in different states of the country, the state of Madhya Pradesh having two such parks at Tamot and Bilaua.
10 Plastic Parks approved so far in different States include one each in UP, Odisha, Assam, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh besides two in MP.
What is a Plastic Park?
A plastic park is an industrial zone specifically designed for plastic-related businesses and industries. It aims to consolidate and synergize the capacities of the plastic processing industry, promoting investment, production, and exports while generating employment. These parks also focus on achieving environmentally sustainable growth through waste management and recycling.
Plastic Park in Gorakhpur
The Plastic Park in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, located specifically in the GIDA (Gorakhpur Industrial Development Authority) area, is part of a larger scheme by the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals, which aims to boost the plastics industry in the region, attracting investment, creating jobs, and supporting domestic production and exports. The park is designed to provide state-of-the-art infrastructure and foster cluster-based development within the downstream plastic processing industry.
Background and Objectives
India stands 12th in world export of plastics, as per the 2022 World Bank estimates. It has grown exponentially from 2014, when it was worth just 8.2 million thousand USD, as compared to the 2022 estimates, where it reached 27 million thousand USD. The phenomenal growth has been a result of constant efforts by Indian government to promote production and export of plastics, like setting up Plastic Parks.
The Indian plastics industry was large but highly fragmented with dominance of tiny, small and medium units and thus lacked the capacity to tap this opportunity. The Department of Chemicals & Petrochemicals formulated this scheme with a view to synergize and consolidate the capacities through cluster development and enhance India’s plastic production and export capabilities.
The scheme formulated by the ministry aimed to increase competitiveness, polymer absorption capacity and value addition in the domestic downstream plastic processing industry through adaptation of modern, research and development led measurers, increase investments in the sector through additions in capacity and production, creating quality infrastructure and other facilitation to ensure value addition and increase in exports, achieve environmentally sustainable growth through innovative methods of waste management, recycling, etc. besides adopt a cluster development approach to achieve the above objectives owing to its benefits arising due to optimization of resources and economies of scale.
Plastic Parks in India
| No. | Plastic Park | Approval Year | Total Project Cost (in Cr) | Approved Grant-inaid (in Cr) | Amount released
(in Cr) |
Released since 2019-20 (in Cr) |
| 1. | Tamot, MP | 2013 | 108.00 | 40.00 | 36.00 | 3.10 |
| 2. | Jagatsingpur, Odisha | 2013 | 106.78 | 40.00 | 36.00 | 6.12 |
| 3. | Tinsukia, Assam | 2014 | 93.65 | 40.00 | 35.73 | 13.73 |
| 4. | Bilaua, MP | 2018 | 68.72 | 34.36 | 30.92 | 28.92 |
| 5. | Deoghar, Jharkhand | 2018 | 67.33 | 33.67 | 30.30 | 28.30 |
| 6. | Tiruvallur, TN | 2019 | 216.92 | 40.00 | 22.00 | 14.00 |
| 7. | Sitarganj, Uttarakhand | 2020 | 67.73 | 33.93 | 30.51 | 30.51 |
| 8. | Raipur, Chhattisgarh | 2021 | 42.09 | 21.04 | 11.57 | 11.57 |
| 9. | Ganjimutt, Karnataka | 2022 | 62.77 | 31.38 | 6.28 | 6.28 |
| 10. | Gorakhpur, UP | 2022 | 69.58 | 34.79 | 19.13 | 19.13 |
