Between April-November this year, prices have gone up by less than 3 per cent even as we withstood higher taxes and fuel costs." The sector was punished by the finance minister in this year’s budget when an additional excise duty of Rs 200 per tonne was levied on cement costing more than Rs 190 per bag. But, the industry believes it was economics at work and there is little merit that they have been unscrupulous. Further, the industry is made to pay for fly ash even as companies the world over are paid for using such pollutants. "Under the garb of administrative charges we are paying between Rs 300-550 per tonne for fly ash. We are asking that we be given fly ash free as per Government directives," Bangur said.
The industry consumes 20 mt of fly ash every year and ends up paying Rs 800 crore towards surcharges. "Imports from neighbouring countries like Pakistan were encouraged while we endured high taxes. We didn’t complain and managed to maintain profitability largely due to high volumes," said J K Cement Group executive president R G Bagla. Currently, around 40,000t of cement is imported every month (0.5Mta) from Pakistan, even as India exports 7 mtpa. "The Railways and real estate took advantage of our negative image and jacked up their prices," he added. The country consumes 165Mt of cement and has an installed capacity of 173 mt. Demand has been growing at a CAGR of 10 per cent over the last ten years. The breakdown Industry claims to have filled the demand-supply gap Aims to take capacity up to 270Mt by 2011 Industry bears surcharges worth Rs 800 cr on fly ash while worldwide firms are paid for using fly ash Royalties and taxes constitute 60% of ex-factory price of cement
