ITC's proposed plant of 200,000 tonnes paper capacity will need 400,000 tonnes of dry wood, for which, in turn, 800,000 tonnes of wet wood (with normal moisture content) are needed. Will this require 75,000 ha to grow?

The average yield from plantations is 100 tonnes of wood per ha in 5-year rotation cycles, which works out to 20 tonnes per ha per year. The plant, therefore, should not need more than 40,000 ha to produce the wood it needs, argues Monali Hazra, who worked on the green rating of the pulp and paper industry conducted by the Centre for Science and Environment.

If we go by the performance of ITC Bhadrachalam, where social forestry has increased the yield (100 tonnes per ha in 4 year rotation cycles), the proposed plant should need about 31,000 ha only.