INDIA: India cement production to touch 320 mn tonnes this year

Cement production in the country is expected to increase to 315-320 million tonne by end of this financial year from the current 300 million tonne.

“The target was 290 million tonne by the end of this year, which we have already achieved. So, we expect the capacity to increase up to 320 million tonne by the year end,” NA Viswanathan, secretary general, Cement Manufacturers Association (CMA), said. CMA is targeting to achieve 550 million tonne capacity by 2020.

India is the second largest cement producing country after China with 137 large and 365 mini cement plants. The large plants employ 120,000 people, according to a recent report on the Indian cement industry published by CMA.

It costs Rs 500 crore to add one million tonne capacity, Viswanathan said while addressing the media on the sidelines of a seminar organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry Green Building Centre (CII-GBC) here.

Stating that India was seeing an addition of almost 40 million tonne per year, he said in the last five years the production capacity has doubled.

In 1982, the entire cement industry produced 64 million tonne. “The current consumption is almost 80 per cent of the capacity. The demand is expected to grow at 8-9 per cent this year,” he said. The housing sector consumes about 65 per cent of the total production. As the capacity was increasing, he said the government should look at infrastructure development.