Indian brick makers, a majority of whom are SMEs, are undergoing a complete makeover through the adoption of mechanisation following the entry of international technology providers and producers. Entrepreneurs are also bringing in product innovation.There are about 35 plants across India, including semi-automatic and fully-automatic ones, which are already operational. Many other modern plants are under construction. Analysts believe that increased difficulties in handling labour, maintaining quality and meeting the increased demand for better-quality bricks have forced brick kiln entrepreneurs to rethink their production processes and also led to product innovation. As a result, many entrepreneurs are diversifying into resource efficient bricks (REBs) by importing machinery from overseas.
REBs are either perforated or hollow, have better insulation properties, and less energy and resources are consumed in their production.
In Europe REBs have wide acceptance but in India they are at a nascent stage, though the market for them is growing. At present, they account for less than one per cent of India’s total brick production. REBs, once adopted, reduce the consumption of top fertile soil by more than 20 per cent, besides lowering energy consumption by 20-30 per cent.
Buoyed by the experience of the early starters, more entrepreneurs are importing state-of-the-art fully automatic machinery from China and Germany for making both REBs and conventional bricks. As for deployment of machinery and REB manufacturing, lots of entrepreneurs are joining the bandwagon. Already there are 12 plants in the southern region, eight in the North, four in the West and two in the eastern region.
“Visualising the potential in the Indian construction sector, major European machinery manufacturers have tied up with Indian machinery manufacturers and started operations in India. The entry of multinational brick producers like Wienerberger in Bangalore has motivated brick entrepreneurs to adopt mechanisation and production of REBs,” said Pritpal Singh, senior engineer, Punjab State Council for Science & Technology. He added that besides setting up new units, many of them are expanding capacity.
Speaking to Business Standard, Ecologic Building Systems (P) Ltd Director-Marketing Rajinder Singh said, “We had set up a new unit in Una district of Himachal Pradesh last year. The plant was set up with an initial investment of Rs 40 crore with state-of-the-art fully automated German technology to manufacture concrete products. We have an installed capacity of 60,000 concrete blocks and up to 600,000 units of bricks/pavers a day.”
He added that acceptance among builders, contractors and architects is increasing day by day, and in order to cater to the National Capital Region market, the company now plans to set up a new unit in the NCR region with a capital outlay of Rs 40 crore, with the same installed capacity. This plant too will have fully automated technology imported from Germany.
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Further, a number of mechanised plants are coming up in the northern region with the capability of producing both conventional bricks and REBs.
India produces about 140 billion bricks annually, mainly through traditional production processes. The industry consumes about 24 million tonnes of coal annually, a huge quantity of biomass fuels, and up to 350 million tonnes of top soil is used every year for clay-based brick production. The industry’s CO2 emissions are estimated to be 42 million tonnes a year.
The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) has been working in the brick sector with the objective of improving energy efficiency and reducing CO2 emissions through the promotion of energy-efficient technologies and practices. It is involved in implementing a project for promoting energy efficiency in the Indian brick industry, in partnership with the Union ministry of environment and forests.
The executing agency is the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). To demonstrate REB technologies, develop technology models and reach out to various regions and brick clusters, the project has set up local resource centres (LRCs) in the North, East, West, South and North East. The Punjab State Council for Science and Technology is the LRC for the northern region.