Cement Firms to Expand Plant Capacity

29 May 2017

Things seem to be looking up for Sardiha, once a Maoist land in West Midnapore cursed with the Jnaneswari Express disaster seven years ago in 2010 and now a home to two major cement plants in Bengal. Dalmia Bharat Group firm OCL is setting up a four million ton capacity cement plant in the area as part of its expansion plan, 15 kms from the Salboni project of Sajjan Jindal’s JSW Group.

It is part of the Dalmia Bharat Group’s expansion plans to add to the grinding capacity of its existing cement plant in Godapiasal, 30 kms from Sardiha. OCL India (formerly Orissa Cement) is an associate of Delhi based Rs 6,000 crore Dalmia Bharat Group.

Deputy executive director and OCL project unit head M Sahoo said the firm has planned the expansion in two phases. In first phase there will be a debottlenecking of capacity through which the capacity would go up to 1.75 million tonne. In next phase, 2.25 million tonne capacity would be added with an investment of over Rs 250 crore. “The total investment in the project would be more than Rs 700 crore. With the existing capacity we had to bring cement from our other plants to meet demand,” he added. There will be additional employment of 480 people.

“The scene was not so bright when we got land from West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC). We started activity here from 2011 and finally the plant was ready by 2014,” Sahoo said. OCL initially invested Rs 450 crore for the 1.35 million tonne grinding unit after it got 154 acres from WBIDC in October 2011. A few units in Jangalmahal, including a paper mill, had to down the shutters in late 2008.

State finance and industries minister Amit Mitra said: “This is good news for the state’s manufacturing sector that can now generate more jobs. Our state is now emerging as the cement hub of India.”

Source – TOI