ACC lines up new capacity, products for East

Cement major ACC is planning to invest more than Rs 1,100 crore in eastern region over a period of four years to ramp up cement capacity and to set up new ready mix concrete plants (RMC).

The company would also be launching application driven products in the region from November as a pilot project to roll out more tailor made products in the Indian market.

The regional head (east) of ACC, Ramit Budhraja, said here today that the company has major expansion plan at its Bargarh plant in Orissa and Sindri in Jharkhand.

ACC currently has an installed capacity of five million ton in eastern region spreading over five plants in West Bengal, Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhatisgarh.

According to the regional head, the company is investing Rs 535 crore in Bargarh and Rs 70 crore in Sindri for adding 1.5 million ton additional capacity in next two years.

"We will have a combined capacity of 6.5 million tonne by 2008," he said.

According to Budhraja, ACC has an aggressive plan for RMC too in the region.

"We want to set up 50 RMC plants in the region by 2010. The combined investment will be more than Rs 500 crore," he added. He pointed out that growing construction activities in the big cities of the region has prompted ACC to drawn up the mega RMC plant in the region.

According to him, four or five units would be set up in and around Kolkata. Others would be close to big cities like Guwahati, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Jamshedpur and Cuttack.

Commenting on the new product launches, he added that ACC would launch some application based products in the eastern region soon.

"We have chosen the region because most of the steel plants and power plants are situated here, so we could easily get slag and fly-ash," he said.