PUNE: With escalating prices of newsprint soaring, print media have been facing a severe crisis with spiraling newspaper costs for the last six months. Newspapers have been left with no alternative but to go in for increase in their cover prices. The newsprint prices have gone up by 50 percent recently.
Newspaper prices have increased in the range of 11 to 12 percent at the beginning of second quarter of financial year 2008-9, compared with the first quarter, says the recent quarterly issue of “Newspaper Industry of India”.
The cost of imported newsprint that was $600 per ton in December 2007, had touched $900 in April this year and it further went up to $1,000 by the month of June. Similarly, the domestic newsprint manufacturers also have raised their prices by Rs.5,000 per ton.
This has left the print media in a scenario where the newspaper production cost is more than Rs.6 per copy; the selling price per copy continues in between Rs.1.5 and 3.
This has compelled newspapers to go in for a hike in their cover prices, though generally newspapers refrain from increasing the cover price largely because of competition.
In India, most of the newsprint is imported from America and China. In view of the Olympic Games, China had reduced the incentives on newsprint, while some of the manufacturers in North America have intentionally lowered their production.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh on Friday announced the new appointment to a key post in the Maharashtra State Waqf Board.
The newly appointed members include Congress legislator Hussain Dalwai, Sheikh Rashid Haji Sheikh Shafi and Abdullah Khan Latif Khan (to represent the post of member of the legislature), Mubin Haroon Solkar (Bar Council member), Maulana Ghulam Vastanwi (Islamic scholar), Abdul Sattar Haji Mohammed (member of a Muslim organization) and Shaheeen Merchant Sayyad Qadri (state government official).
