Jaypee Cement plans new unit

India: Jaypee Cement Ltd is planning to set up a 4.5Mta grinding plant at Tanda in Uttar Pradesh with an investment of Rs750 crore. "This is a big investment in UP, and we are expanding our base fast," Arun Kumar, general manager (marketing), told reporters.  The company also plans to increase the production capacity of its Rewa unit in Madhya Pradesh from 5.5Mt to 6.5Mt.

In Uttaranchal, the company is setting up new distribution points at Luxor and Harrawala in the Garhwal region and Haldiroad in the Kumaon region. "From these centres, we will ferry our goods by freight trains," Kumar said, in place of road trucks. In Uttaranchal and UP, the company is also trying to increase sale. While the company had a marketshare of seven per cent in Uttaranchal, it was 21 per cent in UP, the company official claimed.  Jaypee Cement has a 6.2 per cent market share across the country.

Buoyed by the success of achieving a 7-8 per cent growth rate, the company is now thinking big. "We have launched efforts to set a target of sale of 10Mt of cement in the next two to three years," Kumar said.  Though the company had launched extra efforts to increase its sale across the country, it was focusing on states like Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal, where construction activities were on the rise. "We are going to further improve our performance in the next two to three years," Kumar claimed.