IIP sets eyes on Andhra Pradesh

The premier industry-specific Indian Institute of Packaging (IIP) is to shortly set up an exclusive centre in Visakhapatnam to mark its entry into Andhra Pradesh. There is a substantial interest among students hailing from the State, points out Prof NC Saha, Director of the Hyderabad chapter. This was more so with students from Vijayawada.

Vagish Dixit, Chairman of the Hyderabad centre expressed optimism that there were indications that a Union Government is on the anvil for the institute, given its robust national presence. As things were looking up, IIP is proposing to launch B Tech, M Tech, Ph D in Packaging Technology and Management from the 2017 academic.

This will make it only the second after School of Packaging, Michigan State University, to be offering degree program in packaging. They were speaking during a seminar, Golden Opportunities in Packaging, held in Hyderabad, which attracted the presence of experts in the field and students from various institutes.

In his keynote address, Dr Chandrasekhar Sripada, Global Head of HR at Dr Reddy's Laboratories, said that the time had come for the industry to be packaged into a brand so that more and more youngsters would consider packaging as their first career choice. Urging the young audience of over 400 engineering students to change their mindset, he said there was a more than economically comfortable life beyond the IT sector.

‘In the era of e-commerce, every single product is attractively wrapped and delivered. This gives a great opportunity to the packaging industry, he said. The message from every speaker was the same-with a staggering five billion people preferring online shopping, the packaging industry is poised for exponential growth. They wanted the youngsters to explore career opportunities in packaging, which was also offering handsome pay packets.