'Ceramic City' proposed in Vizag

To be housed in 150-200 acres of land & accommodate 100 SMEs

The Andhra Pradesh state government, the Indian Ceramic Society and the Indian Institute of Refractories Engineer's (Vizag chapter) have jointly proposed the setting up of a 'Ceramic City' in Visakhapatnam with the help of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP).

The proposed Ceramic City will have a modern ceramic laboratory and will be housed in 150-200 acres of land and accommodate 100 small and medium scale fly ash and slag based ceramic units, building material units and refractory units.

"VSP and the Simhadri Thermal Power Plant are generating around 30 lakh tonnes of fly ash every year with VSP alone generating another nine lakh tonnes of slag. At present, fly ash is offered free of cost and slag is available at Rs 150 per tonne. Keeping this raw material availability in mind, we have proposed a fly ash and slag based ceramic, refractory and building material manufacturing units in a cluster," S Durga Das, chairman of Indian Ceramic Society (Vizag Chapter), told Business Standard.

"Based on fly ash, we can make glazed wall tiles (at present there is no wall tile manufacturing unit in Andhra Pradesh), roofing tiles, bricks, drainage pipes, ceramic cups, and other decorative pottery. We also expect some slag-based cement grinding units and low temperature refractory manufacturing units to be set up at the Ceramic City," he said.

"VSP has been purchasing around Rs 190 crore worth of refractories every year but it has purchased only Rs 5-10 crore worth of refractories from the local units. If VSP gives assurance to purchase the refractories from the local units, several new refractory units will come up on this proposed ceramic park," Das said.

"There is no central excise duty being levied on fly ash based products and fly ash itself is available free of cost. Due to these reasons, the production cost of products made in Ceramic Park will be at least 30-35 per cent cheaper," he pointed out.

The proposed park will transfer the latest technology to small and medium scale industries, which will set up units in this park.

"For this purpose, we are proposing to set up a modern ceramic laboratory at a cost of Rs 2 crore and we are going to tie up with 10 other regional ceramic laboratories across the country to get the latest technology," Das said.

The state government is understood to have written a letter to VSP for allocation of land to set up the proposed Ceramic Park.

"We are expecting a positive response from VSP for allocation of 150-200 acres of land and the government will allot these lands to industrialists on a leased basis," he said.