Many publishers are postponing expansion plans, while some are jacking up advertising tariffs to neutralise the higher costs. These are testing times for an industry that has seen rapid growth in the last few years, but is now forced to consider cutbacks of various kinds.

Though few newspaper proprietors and executives admit it, many publishing houses are holding back their expansion plans, thanks to a 50 per cent newsprint price hike in the last six months.

"The current newsprint crisis is affecting the expansion plans of print media companies. They will not venture into new markets, and capacity additions will be deferred if not shelved," says Mohit Jain, director (business and commercial) at BCCL, the country's largest publisher.

Image: A hawker uses a cycle to deliver newspapers in the early hours of a cold winter morning in New Delhi. | Photograph: Manan Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty Images