UltraTech Cement, an Aditya Birla group company, plans to spend ₹1,500 crore this fiscal on various ongoing projects that will enhance its capacity to 118 million tonnes from 115 mt currently.

The ongoing projects include installation of 66 MW of waste heat recovery systems, 1.2-million-tonne per annum brownfield cement capacity addition in West Bengal and Bihar, pending work for phase two of the Bara grinding unit in Uttar Pradesh, coal block development in Madhya Pradesh and new ready mix concrete plants.

With these expansion plans, the company’s consolidated cement capacity will stand augmented to 118 mtpa and green power capacity from waste heat recovery systems will increase to 185 MW and to over 350 MW from solar and wind power.

Over the last three years, the company has increased use of alternative fuel and raw materials by almost two-fold. WHRS capacity has doubled to 118 MW last fiscal while solar and wind capacity has crossed 95 MW compared to none three years ago.

Improving economic indicators

Addressing shareholders at the company’s annual general meeting on Wednesday, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman, UltraTech Cement, said the gradual unlocking of the economy is reflecting in improvement in some economic indicators such as GST collections, electricity consumption, etc. However, they are not yet back to pre-Covid levels. While FY21 will be a challenging year, Birla remains confident that the economy will revert to the 6- to 8 per cent growth trajectory in the next fiscal, he added.

The lockdowns necessitated by Covid have caused an unprecedented economic shock globally. The world economy is likely to contract by 4.9 per cent in 2020 while the Indian economy is also expected to shrink this fiscal.

The lockdown had more severe impact in urban India and on services that thrive on people’s mobility, compared to the rural economy, he said.

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