Orient Cement Ltd, part of the $1.6-billion diversified CK Birla Group, expects to get its "greenfield’ plant in Gulbarga, Karnataka, on steam by June 2015.

The cement major has already invested Rs 1,300 crore of the estimated Rs 1,900 crore for the plant, which has a capacity of producing 3 million/tonnes per annum. It will meet the demands of parts of Karnataka, Maharastra and Andhra Pradesh.

The company registered a net profit of Rs 31 crore (Rs 23 crore) for the quarter ended December 31, 2014, a 36 per cent increase over the corresponding quarter of last year. Its turnover stood at Rs 384 crore ( Rs 341 crore).

The company expects demand to pick-up in the coming quarter on the back of increased spending in rural and semi-urban housing, and improvement in orders from infrastructure projects, according to Deepak Khetrapal, Managing Director.

It would take at least a couple of more quarters for the big projects, plans unveiled by the Centre and states like Telangana and Andhra Pradesh to start taking off and kick-up demand for the construction material. Over the past two years, the going has been tough for the sector, he told BusinessLine .

In Telangana and AP, where the company has been traditionally strong, the demand-supply mismatch has impacted the fortunes of most players. The capacity utilisation has been between 50-60 per cent and prices low on an average. The best news in recent times has been halt to the decline of consumptions in the past few months. The positive signals from the two government’s have raised hopes of the industry, Khetrapal said.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW