Make hay while the sun shines. That?s what the cement industry has been doing over the last three years. In what could be seen as the golden period for over a decade, the cement industry in India has added a whopping 46 million tonne capacity in just a little over three years, taking the total installed capacity to over 200 million tonne as on May 2008.
It is significant to note that, for the first time in the history, the industry has added over 30 mt to its installed capacity in just one year during last fiscal (that is April 2007 to March 2008) and the positive sign continued to be seen in the first two months of the current fiscal (April & May) with two million tonne capacity addition, said cement industry sources here.
It is interesting to note that almost all players of the industry, small to medium to large, have added capacity ranging between a minimum of 2 lakh tonne and a maximum of 3 million tonne in the last three years (April 2005 to March 2008), effecting a total addition of 45 mt to the installed capacity by setting up greenfield projects, expanding and upgrading the existing plants, said the sources.
Of the total capacity addition of 46 mt plus, the industry has added 6.40 mt between April 2005 and March 2006; 7.60 mt between April 2007 and March 2007 and little over 30 mt between April 2007 and March 2008. In the first two months of the current fiscal, nearly 2 mt capacity has been added.
According to sources, some of the states had seen the maximum capacity addition in the last three years. They include Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. Some others such as West Bengal, Meghalaya, Jharkhand, Uttaranchal, Haryana have seen some new plants and expansions, the sources pointed out.
Driven by increasing consumption levels from across the regions, particularly from western and southern regions, the overall production and despatches have grown more than 10% annually for the last three years. Southern and western regions, in particular, have seen both production and despatches grow over 12% annually, followed by northern and central regions, the sources pointed out.
States such as Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Jharkhand have seen tremendous offtake of cement during this three-year period, the sources added.
