The petrochemicals industry in India is just about 25 years old, the major milestone being the commencement of manufacture of the first thermoplastic, polystyrene, in 1957 with technical collaboration of Dow Chemical Co. U.S.A. The initial capacity of the plant was only 7500 tons/yr. This was followed by the manufacture of LDPE by I.C.I. and Union Carbide, HDPE in collaboration with Hoechst, and PVC in collaboration with Shell and a few other overseas companies. There is an installed capacity to manufacture 300,000 tons of the above plastics per year. Among the range of thermosets, PF, UF, MF, polyester, and epoxies are manufactured in the country.