Birlas line up Rs 200 crore for MP units

Birla Corporation’s cement division will invest Rs 200 crore in Madhya Pradesh in a new thermal power plant and for capacity upgrade.

The company has two plants in Satna_Satna Cement Works and Birla Vikas Cements. The money to be invested will be phased over this financial year and the next. Both the plants have clinker and cement manufacturing facility.

"We will invest Rs 100 crore in setting up a new thermal power plant of 27 MW and make a similar investment in a capacity upgrade of 1,000 tonnes. It can go up depending on project potential," said P S Marwaha, company president.

"Work on the new thermal power plant will start before the financial year is out and completed in 2005-06," he added.

Satna Cement Works has the capacity of producing 3,400 tonnes of clinker per day and Birla Vikas Cements 2,900 tonnes per day. These two units supply clinker to the Rai Barielly and Durgapur plants of the company.

The annual cement production capacity of the Satna plant is 16-18 lakh tonnes and 21 lakh tonnes of clinker. The company is also expecting sops from the government mentioned in new Industrial Promotion Policy 2004.

According to the new policy, the state government would offer sops for all industries that invested, a state government official said.

The cement is marketed under the brand names "Samrat", "Samrat Premium", "Premium Cement", "Khajuraho", and `Chetak". The plants manufacture railway sleeper grade cement also.