Cement, Energy and Environment

By D. Sivagurunathan Advisor-Technical The India Cements Ltd., Chennai This year, 2014, is Centenary year for the Indian cement industry. The first cement plant was set up in Vannarapettai in Chennai in 1904 by South India industries Ltd. But it could not succeed to commercial ly produce cement. Not much is known about the fate of this factory. The ever burgeoning Chennai city has swal lowed this cement factory long back without trace. The first cement plant with commercial production of 10,000 tonnes per annum came up in 1914 at Porbander, Gujarat, thus heralding the birth of Cement industry in India. By 1924, cement Production capacity had gone up to 5.60 lac tonnes per annum with addit ion of more and more cement plants. By 1936, ACC (Associated Cement Company) , which is mother of Indian cement industry, was formed by merging 10 cement plants. Even today, you will find ex-ACC or ACe– trained people everywhere in Cement Industry. In 1937, Dalmia built 5 cement plants and ACC expanded with 4 add itional plants. By 1947, cement manufacturing capacity in India went up to 1.5 Mt. per nnum. With the country attaining Independence, it had opened up vistas for new economic growth and infrastructure development. By 1954 , cement production capacity in India has increased to 9.20 Mt. per annum with almost 34 cement units in operat ion The Cement market which was facing glut unti l then had started facing shortage. The Government introduced complete control on the price and distribut ion of cement since mid-1960s ' due to cement shortage, resulting inslowdown in growth of the cement industry. To accelerate growth, government introduced partial decontrol in 1982, which opened f lood gates for growth of the cement industry. By 1989, cement was completely decontrolled and since then cement industries grew very rapidly and reached the present capacity of 360 Mt. per annum. Many multi- national cement giants like Holcim, Lafarge, and ltalcementi have entered the Indian Cement industry in a big way in the last decade and have sizable presence in the Indian market at present. ACC Cement, Maddukkarai was the earl iest cement plant set up in Tamilnadu . Dalmia cement (Bharat) came up with cement plant at Dalmiapuram in 1937. Many people may wonder why Dalmia cement is called Dalmia (Bharat) Ltd . Do they have Cement Plant in Pakistan? Yes, indeed . Dalmia had established cement plants in the North West region before independence, which had gone to Pakistan after partition. After independence, Shri Sankaralinga lyer and Shri T s Narayanaswami conceived the idea of "THE INDIA CEMENTS LTD" with a cement factory in Talaryuthu in India's southernmost district. The company was incorporated on 21 s 1 February 1946. Commercial production of first wet process kiln commenced in 1949 with initial production capacity of 1 lac tonne per annum. The Company's f irst General Manager was a Danish man called Mr s Kruse whose services were offered to the Company by M/s FLSmidth & Co. The production capacity was increased to 4.63 lac tonnes per annum by 1959 with addition of two more wet process kilns . In response to Government's calls for expansion in domestic production capacity, the company built two more wet process kilns at Sankarnagar in mid 60s bringing annua l capacity to 9. 13 Lac tonnes per annum. Five wet process kilns were in operation producing more than one million tonne cement every year from 1965 onwards until 1990. The wet process kilns were long, slow running and low in capacity and in addition, they were causing heavy pollution around the factory . Located on nat ional highway and being close to a large city, Tirunelveli , the factory was cynosure to publ ic eyes . Realizing this, the company decided to scrap all five wet process '