Delivering the presidential address at the 20th biennial Indian Paint Conference here, IPA president Ashwin Dani said generation have huge earnings and growing aspirations for a better quality of life.

"They will not accept the prevailing disparity. Globalisation and liberal policies of the government will unplug the huge demand and we shall be looking at a larger market for paints ten years from now," he said.

To cash in on this, the industry should benchmark itself to a new agenda and develop an Indian strategy. "We all need to put our active forces together and develop an Indian strategy for the paint industry," he said adding: "We have to change the mindset to match the fast changing environment. We need to plan for the world class initiative in technology, manufacturing business and customer service functions. "We need to benchmark ourselves with the best in the world and leave our cottage industry mindset behind if we have to succeed in building a world class paint industry in India."

He said the domestic paint industry was aware of the growing environmental concerns and the research and development works are directed more and more towards water-based and water thinnable products with would lower the consumption of petroleum products. The IPA is also working along with the Bureau of Indian Standards for setting standards for eco-friendly paints, he added.

Besides, the IPA has also joined hands with ten other Asian Paint Manufacturers' Associations to form the Asian Paint Council, which deals mainly with the environmental and pollution problems and regulations in various countries, he added.

He said the growth of the paint industry has accelerated since 1992 and the market is now valued at Rs 6,000 crore or 550,000 tonne with 70 per cent of the total market occupied by architectural paints and 30 per cent by industrial paints.

The reduction in excise duty from 40.25 per cent to 16 per cent and customs duty on raw material from 90 per cent to 46 per cent have spurred the growth.However, the industry has slowed down a bit in the current fiscal with the growth rate softening to 12 per cent compared to 14 per cent to 15 per cent in the previous years. He said the slowdown was more marked in the industrial sector than the architectural sector.

The two-day meet was inaugurated by noted academician and chemical scientist Padmavibhooshan Man Mohan Sharma.

In his inaugural address he urged the paint industry to take a closer look at the changes that taking place around and asked them to shape up for taking on new challenges and opportunities.