Basic Facts About Cement

November 3, 2015 November 9, 2023

Portland Cement was discovered by Joseph Aspdin in 1824. He called it Portland cement because what he discovered resembled the limestone found in Portland.

In 1904, a small cement factory South India Industrial Ltd. was established in Madras in 1904.
The first large scale cement manufacturing company was Indian Cement Company Ltd. that started producing cement in 1914 at Porbundar in Gujarat. Other units included Katni (Madhya Pradesh 1915) and Lakheri (Rajasthan 1916).
In those days, Cement was an import material, but due to availability of raw material, cheap labour etc. the industry grew very soon. In World War-I period, the above three factories came under the control of the government.
In 1936, all the cement companies except one agreed and formed Associated Cement Companies Ltd. (ACC). Government launched Cement Expansion Scheme in 1948 to launch new cement factories. In five year plans also, cement industry got due care.

Currently, India is second largest producer and consumer of cement after China. However, China’s production is nearly nine times higher than India.

There are two types of plants in Indian cement industry viz. Large plants and Mini / white cement plants. There are 188 large plants with installed capacity of 378mtpa and current (2015) production is 246mt.
The number of Mini / white cement plants is 365 with total installed capacity of 11.7mtpa and production 33.66 mt.

Maximum number of large cement plants are located in Andhra Pradesh, followed by Tamil Nadu & Rajasthan. Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan are largest cement producing states while Maharashtra is largest consumer state of Cement.

There are 7 cement clusters in India, which account for around half of production.

Cement Industry is private sector dominated. ACC is India’s largest cement producer. Other largest players are Gujarat Ambuja, Ultratech, Grasim, India Cements, JK Group, Jaypee Group, Century, Madras Cements, Birla Corp.

In 2014, India’s per capita consumption of cement was 225 kg; which is much lesser than the developed and other developing economies.

This is a registered society that provides scientific, technological and industrial services support to the cement, related building materials and construction industries and carries on its activities through its units located at Ballabgarh, Hyderabad and Ahmadabad.