Cement, Energy and Environment July-Sep 2002

boost touri sm and trade by laying a road linking northeastern India and western Thail and through Myanmar ha s been agreed upo n by th e governments ofthe 3 Asian nations. The 1600 km hi ghway will be com pl eted in 2 yea rs. Many stretches of the corridor already exist and on ly need to be improved. The move comes just days after direct flights began lining the northeastern Ind ian c ity of Guwahati withBangkok. Until now, there were no direct fli ghts from abroad to northeastern India. Courle~y: Cement News Digest, I 7-23 Aug 02, P I I. Fax: OJ 1-5738476 Email: cmand@nda.vsn.net.in Web: ltllvw.cmaindia. org INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECT FINANCING The Statesman, New Delhi, 14 Aug 02 National Highway Authori ty of' Ind ia (NHA I) ha s raised Rs.2232.43 cro re from market borrowings thi s fi sc'al fo r part– funding the ambitious Rs.54,000 cro re Na ti ona l Hi ghway Development Project (NHDP). " In the year 2002-03, NHAI aggress ively ope ned its issue of capita l ga in s exemption bonds under section 54 ED of the IT Act on May 22. By the end of July 31, NHAI collected Rs.2232.43 crore," mi nister of state for road transport BC Khanduri said at New Delhi. NHAI has a lso final ised a Rs.6,000 crore line of credit from Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), which would carry interest rate equival ent to government securities plus I00 basis points, he said. The 25 year loan from LIC would have a moratorium of 3 years and are repayable in 7 years. NHDP, comprising four Ianing of national highway connecting four corners of the country, is being part funded from Re one cess on petrol and diese l which wo ul d raise Rs.5880 crore this year, Rs.2000 crore wou ld be all ocated for national highways, Rs.2500 crore for rura l and Rs .300 c rore to Railways for construction of rail over-bridges and level-crossing, Khanduri said. "NHAI has al so received externa l assistance (World Bank and Asian Deve lopment Bank loans) to the tune of Rs.2240 crore during 1999-2000 to 2002-03," he said. Khanduri said government has approved the first phase if NHDP at a cost of Rs.30,300 crore (at 2000 pri ces). The phase-! of NHDP consists of the golden quadrilateral, connecting four metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. Courte~y: Cement News Digest, 17-23 Aug 02, f' 5. Fax: 01 1-5738476 Email: cmand@nda. vsn. net. in Web: www.cmaindia.org LAFARGE IN PACT WITH DVC TO SET UP PLANT IN \VEST BENGAL The Hindus/an Business Line New Delhi, 06.06 2002 Cement multinational Lafarge has signed a pact with Damodar Valley Corp to set up a one million tonne plant that will use the fly ash generated by DVC's thermal power plant at Mejia in Bankura district of West Bengal. DVC, a multipurpose ri ver valley project owned by the Union governme nt and two state governments ofJharkhand 'and West Bengal, has a command area of 24,235 sq .km. "We have already signed an MoU with Lafarge, which wi ll consume the entire quantity of fly ash to be generated by the fourth unit of our Mejia Thermal Power Station," DVC's chairman JC Jell i told The Financial Express. The 2 10 mw unit, which will involve and investment of Rs. 798 c rore and is expected to be commissioned by September 2004, will generate around I000 tonne of fl y ash and 250 tonne of bottom ash per day. The cement factory wi II be set up within the Mej ia TPS plant boundary. At Mejia, DVC has in its possession over 2540 acres, which is enough for the foutth unit as well as two more similar expansions and the cement plant. ·The Lafarge plant will require around 60 acres. The fifth and sixth unit of Mejia TPS are expected to get the techno-economic clearance of the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) by September. Courte~y: Cement News Digest 01-07 June 2002, P .J, 1-:ax: 022-2040582 E-mail: cmabb@bom3vsnl. net. in Web: wwu·. cmainda. org SELF-COMPACTING CONCRETE: AN EMERGING TECHNOLOGY IN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY Dr. Rakesh Kumar & M. V. B. Rao Central Road Research Institute Self-compacti ng concrete is a type ofconcrete that gets compacted unde r its self-weight. It is commonly abbreviated as sec and defined as the concrete which can be placed and compacted into every corner of a fo rm-work, pure ly by means of it se lf-weight by eliminating the need of either external energy input from vibrators or any type of compacting effort. sec was originally deve loped at the Un iversity or Tokyo, Japan, in collaboration with leading concrete contractors during late 1980s. The intention behi nd deve loping thi s concrete was the concerns regarding the homogeneity and compaction or cast-in-p lace concrete within int ricate, i.e. , highly reinforced str uctures and improvement of overall durabil ity quality ofconcrete due to lack of skilled labour in Japa·n. Thi s concrete is highly flowab le and cohesive enough to be . ,.. ( . -' -