Aditya Birla plans Fal-G brick plants

Units to be set up in Hyd, Delhi, Chennai or B'lore

The Aditya Birla Group is planning to set up three Fal-G brick manufacturing units "� one each at Hyderabad, Delhi, and Chennai or Bangalore.

Initially, each unit will have a production capacity of three-crore bricks a year. Visakhapatnam-based Institute for Solid Waste Research and Ecological Balance (Inswareb) has been appointed as a consultant by the group to set up these units.

Speaking to Business Standard, N Kalidas, director, Inswareb, said, "Of the country's total cement production, close to 35 per cent is being produced by the Adiya Birla group. The group is planning to produce cement-based Fal-G bricks in large quantities. As part of the plan, it is setting up a pilot project in Hyderabad with a production capacity of 15,000 bricks a day. This unit will start production within 10-15 days."

The group is planning to import machinery from Germany to set up fully-mechanised Fal-G bricks manufacturing units in the country, he added.

Thermal power stations in the country currently generate about 120 million tonnes of flyash a year as waste by-product. Of this, the brick industry consumes about 9 million tonnes while the cement industry uses about 12-15 million tonnes.

Several thermal power stations give away flyash to the brick industry free of cost, while some stations are collecting nominal charges depending on the demand, Kalidas explained.

Currently, about 1,800 small and tiny units are engaged in manufacturing Fal-G bricks in the country, of which about 800 units are located in Andhra Pradesh. The units in the state produce more than 1,600 million bricks a year.

Fal-G bricks are available in two forms "� lime-based and cement-based. While lime-based bricks contain 60 per cent flyash, 30 per cent lime and 10 per cent of gypsum, cement-based bricks contain 76 per cent flyash, 20 per cent cement and 4 per cent gypsum.