Cement unit facing closure threat, India

Cement unit facing closure threat, India
07 January 2008


The only surviving cement factory in Koraput district might have to be closed for the lack of support from the administration, sources said. Owing to improper survey, planning and assessment of the feasibility of cement factories in the district, Hira Cement of Rallagada and Hanuman Cement near Damanjodi were closed long back, while the cement factory at Ampavali in Pottangi block could be survived for being managed jointly by Snehadhara Industries, private company, and IDCOL, public enterprise.  
 
The company, which was established in 1993 as the first private-public joint venture in the district to create a sustainable platform for generating job opportunities for the rural youth, ran into rough weather for failing to have any proper strategy and to prevent any further losses it was handed over to Toshali Cements in 2003.

However, by merely changing the management could not solve many basic problems of the company and hence it has been facing the threat of closure, sources added. As Ampavali is situated at a distance of 18 km from the national highway, transporters find it difficult to cover the distance with a bad ghat road connecting the plant site, P. Ramakrishna Rao, GM of the company, said.

Further the problems were compounded as electricity cables were laid from Sunabeda, more than 50km from the plant site. This had caused frequent breakdown of electric supply to the plant, he added. Lack of availability of technical persons locally and poor accessibility to the plant site, had forced the management many a times to shut down the plant for want of repair.

The plant was reopened only in December after a long break, Prabuthan, Deputy Manager of the company, said. The administration could have helped the company to bail out from being shut down if priority was given to locally produced cement in its procurement, he hoped . 
Published under Cement News