Cement, Energy and Environment

kilns and go for single modern dry process kiln of inefficient and polluting industry in 1950s, cement the same capacity of production. In August 1990, a industry has come a long way to boast as No.1 in modern pollution free dry process kiln with capacity of 1 Mt. per annum was commissioned. With growing population around the cement plant, now the cement factory is in the midst of a densely populated area and runs pollution free with adequate pollution control equipments. Cement from this factory is being used since generations by southern district people of Tamilnadu and Kerala. Many landmark civil structures like Pamban Bridge across the sea at Rameswaram, ldukki dam in Kerala, atomic reactor domes in Kudankulam were constructed with the cement manufactured from this factory. The India Cements Ltd has now grown from 1 lac tonnes company to 16 Mt. company with 8 cement plants and 2 grinding units spread all over India. This is a fascinating story of 65 year old ''The India Cement Ltd", largest Cement manufacturer of South India within the story of the century old Indian cement industry. India is second largest cement producer in the world, China being the distant first. At present, China produces more than 2000 Mt. per annum cement - almost 50% of the world production and India produces about 275 Mt. per annum - about 6% of the total global production. It employs more than 150000 people directly and more than 1 million people indirectly. Since independence, Cement demand has grown at 7.2% whereas the economy has grown at 4.8% in GDP. Though, India is the second largest cement producer in the world , its per-capita cement consumption is abysmally low (185 kg) whereas in China , per– capita cement consumption is as high as 1555 kg . The reason is poor pace of urbanization and lack of infrastructure development. Developed countries spent almost 80% of the cement consumption in infrastructure development and 20% in residential segment whereas in India it is reverse. But India is catching up with other developed countries in urbanization and infrastructure development. The government has already started infrastructure development in a big way and cement demand would grow exponentially in the coming years. The Indian cement industry stands first in the world in energy efficiency. From the most energy efficiency in the world. In 1950s the wet process kilns were consuming thermal energy of 1500-1800 kcal/kg of clinker. The consumption has come down from 875kcal/kg of clinker in 1990 to 725 kcal/kg of cl inker in 2010. Power consumption has come down for the same period from 120 kwh/T of cement to 80kwh/T of cement. This is mainly because Indian cement industry has replaced almost all old wet process technology plants with modern dry process precalciner technology plants whereas still many developed countries continue to produce significant volume of cement from wet process. Average kiln capacity has gone up from 285 TPD in 1950 to 3305 TPD in 2010 with mammoth size of modern cement plants seen at present. Latest cement plants have very modern computerized control system with significant usage of electronic gadgets in every field. Earlier Cement industry was engaging lot of Manual labour for mining and plant operation and labour productivity was low. Labour productivity has substantially improved by more than 90% between 2006 and 2012 due to manpower reduction on account of mechanization and automation. Though the cement is an essential commodity for economic growth it does not get priority status for resources allocation. Cement Industry contributes more than 5% fiscal revenue and more than a million people are employed directly and indirectly. But Cement industry is highly taxed by government in India. Cement industry accounts for 1.5% of the total GDP whereas it contributes 5% of the total tax revenue collected by central and state governments which shows cement industry is disproportionately taxed. Total cement tax in India is 32% whereas it is only 16% in China. The total tax and levy on cement are the royalty and import duty on input materials, electricity duty, value added tax (VAT) and excise duty which constitutes 1/3rd of retail sale price. Though there is hue and cry every now and then about high cement price, it is significantly lower than inflation. The overall inflation has increased at the rate of 6.9% every year since 1992 (base year), whereas the cement price has 2 • .] l ) ?" ,