Business Heads of Pulp & Viscose staple fibre Group
    Mr. Shailendra K. Jain

Aditya Birla Group is one of the largest manufacturer of viscose staple fibre in the  world. Aditya Birla Group pioneered the manufacture of VSF in India and as well as in Thailand and Indonesia using indigenous resources, know-how and equipment decades ago and today, it is at the nerve centre of the cellulosic fibre industry in the world.

Aditya Birla Group is today the world's largest producer of VSF, commanding a 24 per cent global market share and meeting over 98 per cent of India's VSF requirements.

Aditya Birla Group has developed several improved varieties of viscose fibres, including new generations of specialty  fibres. These fibres produced from indigenous mixed-hardwood pulp, are comparable with the best in the  world.

Group companies manufacturing specially viscose staple fibre are as follows:

	Grasim Industries Limited, India
	Grasilene Division, Harihar, India
	Staple Fibre Division, Nagda, India
	Birla Cellulosics , India
	P. T. Indo Bharat Rayon, Indonesia
	Thai Rayon Public Co., Ltd., Thailand

Thai Rayon produces Viscose Rayon Staple Fibre in the range of 0.8 to 5 Denier with a staple fibre length in the range of 32 mm to 101 mm.

Rayon fibre of a variety of specification is available in the lustre of Bright Bleached, Semi Dull Bleached and Full Dull Bleached to meet requirement of textile and non-woven industry. The company produces chlorine-free fibre, i.e, hydrogen-peroxide bleached fibre.

Grasim is India's pioneer in Viscose Staple Fibre (VSF), a man-made, biodegradable fibre with characteristics akin to cotton. Extremely versatile and easily blended with other fibres, VSF is widely used to manufacture fabrics for both woven and knitted garments. The range of applications extends from apparel — both top wear and bottom wear — to home textiles, dress material, knitted inner wear and outer wear, and non-woven fabrics

Grasim's VSF plants are located at Nagda in Madhya Pradesh, Kharach in Gujarat and Harihar in Karnataka, with a combined installed capacity of 2,51,850 tonnes per annum. Nagda is its largest unit producing a wide range of VSF to suit customer requirements in terms of length, denier and colour. Nagda is also the largest producer of spun-dyed specialty fibre in the world.

The Harihar unit produces rayon grade pulp, the basic raw material for VSF production and raw white VSF. The Company's rayon grade plant was the first in India to use totally indigenous resources like eucalyptus. It uses an in-house technology for producing rayon pulp with an innovative oxygen bleaching process to reduce the use of chlorine.

The VSF plant at Kharach, set up in 1997, employs the most contemporary technology, and today overseas customers demand "fibre from Kharach". The AV cell unit in Canada, an overseas joint venture, also supplies dissolving grade chemical pulp to the Group's VSF units in India, Thailand and Indonesia.

This spread and scale of operations makes the Group's VSF operations extremely cost competitive. In addition, vertical integration into production of various principal raw materials required for VSF production — caustic soda, CS2 and rayon grade pulp — heightens its competitive edge.

Grasim has earned prestigious awards for its technology and its innovative range of fibres. Made from wood pulp through an eco-friendly, non-polluting process developed and patented by the Aditya Birla Group, it is the world's only heavy-metal-free viscose fibre.

The Birla Research Institute for applied sciences at Nagda along with the Company's R&D teams, endeavours to make technology work for improving quality, lowering costs and optimising resources, the Company's Textile Research Application Development Centre (TRADC), coming up at Kharach, will continually develop new applications and products. It will also explore possibilities of strategic alliances with downstream textile product manufacturers to commercialise the applications, leveraging superior quality of VSF in terms of feel, comfort, hygiene and aesthetics.

All of the VSF business offerings have been branded under the 'Birla Cellulose' umbrella. To penetrate into niche market segments, and to grow further, the division has ventured into the production of high performance viscose fibres aptly named Viscose Plus, High Wet Modulus Fibres (Modal) and Birla Excel, the new generation solvent spun fibres.