Dalmia Cement Bharat forays into Maharashtra.

Dalmia Cement Bharat, the flagship firm of the listed Dalmia Bharat, India’s third largest cement manufacturer, on Thursday forayed into Maharashtra with its premium cement called Dalmia Ultra to aggressively increase its market share.

“We have started commercial production of our premium cement called Dalmia Ultra brand from our new green field cement factory in Belgaum district in Karnataka,” Mahendra Singhi, group CEO, Cement and wholetime director at Dalmia Cement Bharat, said.

He said the company had invested Rs 1,400 crore in the new facility spread over 280 acre campus with 2.5 million tonnes installed capacity per annum. This is its eleventh manufacturing plant in the country.

“The new plant will cater to the growing markets in Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka,” Singhi said, adding that it would take about four to eight years to book returns on investment in the facility. Earlier, in less competitive market, it was four-five years, he said.

Singhi said last year the cement industry led by market leader Aditya Birla Group’s Ultratech Cement, and Holcim Cement (ACC and Ambuja Cements), sold 276 million tonnes in the country valued at Rs 175 lakh crore. Cement in India is priced between Rs 6,000 and Rs 7,500 per tonne for various grades of cement, he said.

The total installed cement manufacturing capacity in the country is pegged at 376 million tonnes.

“While the cement industry in India grew 5.3 per cent, Dalmia Cement Bharat grew 12 per cent last financial year,” Singhi said.

With the new Belgaum factory, the company’s total cement manufacturing capacity from 11 factories has increased to 24 million tonnes per annum.

Dalmia Cement also commissioned three new cement factories last year. While the factory in Assam has an installed capacity of 1.5 million tonne annually and the West Bengal facility has 1.3 million tonne capacity. The third acquired factory is the Bokaro cement plant in Jharkhand with 2.1 million tonne capacity per annum, Singhi said.

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