India Cements has now decided to invest Rs 300 crore for establishing a cement

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plant with an initial capacity of 1.5 million tonnes per annum (tpa) in Rajasthan.

“India Cements will invest Rs 300 crore for establishing the new cement pla-nt in Rajasthan through Indo Zinc. While the total pro-ject cost is Rs 600 crore, the balance Rs 300 crore will be raised as debt, with guarantee from India Cements,” said N Srinivasan, vice-cha-irman and managing director of India Cements.

The move will help the company in strengthening its presence in north India, where its plans for a unit in Himachal Pradesh has been caught in infrastructural bottlenecks. It already has a unit up and running in Maharashtra.

Meanwhile, the net turn-over of the company registered a 9.5 per cent increase at Rs 960.25 crore for the three months ending June 30, against Rs 876.33 crore reported in the corresponding quarter of last year. The net profit increased marginally to Rs 144.28 crore (Rs 142.14 crore). According to Srinivasan, the growth projects are subdued by weaker demand in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka during the last quarter. “Post elections, AP has picked up and may well come back to its double digit growth.”