Have you ever constructed a house of your own? If you have, then you would  know how the average middle class Indian consumer suffers in getting cement, iron and steel required for his house construction.

Our Indian Govt is trying very hard to reduce cost of cement. But the present circumstances are not favorable it as previously an excise tax of Rs400/ton has been collected. But now it has been increased to 550Rs. At the same time cost of coal has been increased to greater extent. Apart from these increased transport charges & salaries are added draw backs. Because of these factors, the Govt is still in its own trials to make the cost reasonable. Also, to keep inflation under control, it restricted the cement exports from India. Expected consequence of this action was the reduction in the gap between Demand and Supply of cement. As soon it was declared by FTP(Foreign Trade Policy) to make the relaxation and reduction schemes invalid on export, our Govt has decided to ban the cement exports from our country.

Check out the following statistics. In the financial year 2007-2008, our country recorded 175 million tons of cement usage. Whereas for exports it was just 3.5 million tons.  This shows that cement industries haven’t got any vital role to play in international market when compared to the Indian market.

In India except a few, remaining all industries are least bothered about the export of cement. Those few industries are from Gujarat & Maharashtra. These big industries are continuing to export just to keep up their entity in international levels, even they are not yielding profits. But now that too has stopped. With a brief view of the present scenario, what can the government do to save the Indian consumer?

Its upto the big guns like ACC, Ambuja Cement, India Cement, Ultratech Cement, Grasim and other smaller players like Sanghi Industries, Birla Corporation, Zuari Cement, Binani Industries, NCL Industries, Saurashtra Cement and JK Cement to try and sell cement within reasonable limits.

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