Pat for cement industry, slap for top players

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a Delhi-based NGO, has commended the cement industry as a whole for becoming more environment friendly, even as it accused the top players in the sector as poor environmental managers.

Grasim Industries of the Aditya Birla group has been rated mediocre by the NGO. Associated Cement Companies Ltd , now jointly owned by the multinational Holcim and the Ambuja Group, scored less than 35 per cent marks. However, the group's Gagal plant in Himachal Pradesh has been rated the third best plant in the country.

Ranking the top 41 cement producers in the country, the CSE said air pollution caused by the industry was lower than that in the earlier years and the companies had become more energy-efficient than their counterparts in developed nations in Europe and the United States.

The study conduced by the CSE covered 80 per cent of the Indian cement sector's total production capacity.

The CSE's Green Rating Project (GRP) for the cement industry is a tool to push industries to improve their environmental performance. For this rating, the GRP selected 41 production plants of 23 major cement producers, spread over nine states.

"While the industry has earned credit for reducing energy use and pollution, it has been indicted for its bad mining practices. The cement industry spends as little as 4 per cent of its turnover on the cost of its raw material - limestone," said a statement from the organisation.

The mining of this resource had led to huge environmental problems, including the depletion of groundwater for local communities, the statement said.