ACC to offer building solutions

After a successful pilot run of its product 'foundation to roof' (F2R) cement, ACC aimed to romp up its marketing to support this new product in eastern India.

The pilot was run in selected towns and cities of West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand, like Kolkata, Ranchi and Patna. The product was launched in May this year.

F2R combined products and services for the customer, said V K Agnihotri, eastern India sales head for ACC.

A customer opting for F2R would receive technical advice from ACC appointed engineers on house building estimation, training on good construction practices, testing of ingredients at site, site visits at different stages of construction and strength testing of the concrete structure, he explained.

Customers looked for solutions, and not just a product, he added. ACC would target individual house builders for F2R, as unlike institutional developers, they did not have access to good technicians.

Cost of F2R would be higher than normal cement by around 5 per cent.The cost of normal ACC cement was at around Rs 235 per 50 kilogram bag. The product would be manufactured at the Chaibasa plant of the company, said Agnihotri.

Currently, F2R accounted for 5 per cent of the total production of the plant. By 2009, the production of F2R would be scaled up to constitute 25 per cent of total production, he added.

F2R sales were around Rs 1 crore per month now. After the full launch, sales were expected to shoot up to Rs 5 crore per month, Agnihotri said.

As of now, F2R would be available only in eastern India as the region was a comparatively tougher market for testing any cement product as concentration of population was less compared to the rest of the country.

A product successful in the East was likely to do well in the rest of the country, he added. East contributes to nearly 17 per cent of the company's all India sales.

ACC was looking at dispatching 4.3 million tons of cement in the region by the end of December. Despatch in the region was up by roughly 8-9 per cent over last year. ACC was aiming at October 2008 commissioning of its Bargah plant after expansion of its capacity.

The company was in the process of scaling up the plant's capacity from 0.96 million tons per annum (mtpa) to nearly 2.2mtpa with an investment of over Rs 300 crore. The plant, in Orissa, would also have a 30MW captive power plant.

The total investment in the project could be around Rs 500 crore. Benefits of the expansion would show in the fourth quarter of 2008-09. The F2R launch and Bargah expansion were parts of the company's 2009 plan.