Economy & Market

ACC Ltd: Marching ahead

Published

15 years ago

September 30, 2011

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ACC Ltd is one of the front runners in the cement industry in India and produces some of the best quality cement in the country. It has a significant market share in the segments of housing, real estate, infrastructure and other development projects. With more and more developmental projects coming up, the profit and the market share of the company is expected to rise at a considerable rate.

In an era when mergers and acquisition were unknown, 10 cement companies belonging to the Tatas, Khataus, Killick Nixon and F E Dinshaw came together in the year 1936 and merged into a single entity, which is today known as ACC Ltd. The company has a pan-India presence, with operation spread across the country with 14 modern cement factories having a total installed capacity of 22.4 MTPA, a string of 20 sales offices and a countrywide distribution network of over 9,000 dealers. It has a workforce of more than 10,000 persons.

ACC has been credited of introducing many firsts in India. In 1947, India’s first indigenous cement plant was built by at Chaibasa by ACC. The company commissioned the country’s first million tonne kiln at Wadi in 1982, and has erected the world’s largest cement kiln with a daily capacity of 12,500 tonne. From a production capacity of one million tonne per annum in 1936, the company has achieved a capacity of 22.5 MTPA. ACC also set many trends in the cement industry. One of the most significant was the introduction of blended cements. It used industrial waste like slag and fly ash, which helped in lowering greenhouse emission and conserving mineral wealth.

Products offered

The company manufactures 43 Grade Cement (OPC 43 Grade), 53 Grade Cement, Fly-ash based Portland Pozzolana Cement, and Portland Slag Cement. The OPC 43 Grade is the most commonly used cement in all constructions including plain and reinforced cement concrete, brick and stone masonry, floors and plastering. It is also used in the finishing of all types of buildings, bridges, culverts, roads, water retaining structures, etc. It has surpassed BIS Specifications (IS 8112-1989 for 43 grade OPC) on compressive strength levels. The 53 Grade Cement is an Ordinary Portland Cement which surpasses the requirements of IS: 12269-53 Grade. It is produced from high quality clinker ground with high purity gypsum. It provides high strength and durability to structures because of its optimum particle size distribution, superior crystalline structure and balanced phase composition. The fly-ash based Portland Pozzolana Cement is special blended cement, produced by inter-grinding higher strength ordinary Portland cement clinker with high quality processed fly ash-based on norms set by the ACC’s R&D division. This unique, value-added product has hydraulic binding properties not found in ordinary cements. The Portland Slag Cement is slag-based blended cement that imparts strength and durability to all structures. It is manufactured by blending and inter-grinding OPC clinker and granulated slag in suitable proportions as per norms of consistent quality. PSC has many superior performance characteristics which give it certain extra advantages when compared to ordinary Portland cement. The PSC is eco-friendly cement as reduces CO2 emissions and helps in conserving energy.

Plants

The cement plants of ACC are located in various regions of the country in a number of states. The gadgets and equipment are of high standards and comply with the international standards. Presently there are around 15 cement plants of ACC which cater to the different market segments of the country. The cement plants work in coordination with each other and also independently to increase the market share. All these cement plants use cutting edge technologies and services are equipped with advanced technological facilities which make them completely environment-friendly. The plants use some of the sophisticated pollution control devices in various parts such as raw mills, power plants, cement kilns, coolers and other equipments. In addition, the mining technologies that have been implemented in the cement plants of ACC are also based on environment safeguard norms. ACC’s cement plants consist of high quality Zero Water Discharge facilities which help in proper water management. The water that is used in the plant for the process of industrial cooling is recycled by the use of tanks, water ponds and cooling towers. Through this process, the company has been successful in water harvesting.

Subsidiary and associates

The subsidiary and associates of the company are ACC Concrete Ltd, ACC Mineral Resources Ltd, Bulk Cement Corporation (India) Ltd, National Limestone Company Pvt Ltd and Encore Cement & Additives Private Ltd. ACC set up India’s first commercial Ready Mix Concrete (RMX) plant in Mumbai in 1994. Today this business has been re-organised as a separate company called ACC Concrete Ltd which is one of the largest manufacturers of RMX in India with over 55 modern plants in major cities such as Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Goa, Pune and Ahmedabad. ACC’s wholly owned subsidiary, The Cement Marketing Company of India Ltd, was renamed as ACC Mineral Resources Ltd (AMRL) in May 2009 with an objective of securing valuable mineral resources, such as coal for captive use. ACC Mineral Resources Ltd has entered into joint venture arrangements for prospecting, exploration and mining coal from the coal blocks in Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. The company is also exploring other opportunities for securing additional coal and gypsum resources in India and abroad. The Bulk Cement Corporation (India) Ltd is situated at Kalamboli, Navi Mumbai and caters to bulk cement requirements. It has two cement storage silos with a capacity of 5,000 tonne each. The plant receives cement in bulk from ACC plants at Wadi. The plant has its own special purpose railway wagons and rakes and its own railway siding. A first of its kind in India, it is equipped with all the facilities required by increasingly sophisticated construction sites in a bustling metropolis, including a laboratory, a fleet of specialised trucks and site silos for the convenience of customers and is capable of offering loose cement in bulk-tanker vehicles as well as packed cement in bags of varying sizes from 1 ton down to 25 kg bags. It is situated strategically on the outskirts of Mumbai, just off the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and is spread over 30 acres of land. ACC acquired 100 per cent of the equity of Lucky Minmat Pvt Ltd. This company holds limestone mines in the Sikar district of Rajasthan, and helps supplement limestone supply to the Lakheri Plant. National Limestone Company Pvt Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary and is engaged in the business of mining and sale of limestone. It holds mining leases for limestone in the state of Rajasthan. ACC acquired 100 per cent of the financial equity of Encore Cement & Additives Pvt Ltd which is a slag grinding plant in Vishakhapatnam in coastal Andhra Pradesh. This company became a wholly-owned subsidiary of ACC in January 2010.

Corporate Social Responsibly

The CSR activities of ACC revolves around the underprivileged community that lives in the immediate vicinity of cement plants and is thus more dependent on their welfare. The range of activities begins with extending educational and medical facilities and goes on to cover vocational guidance and supporting employment-oriented and income-generation projects like agriculture, animal husbandry, cottage industries by developing local skills, using local raw materials and helping create marketing outlets. At all the cement factories of ACC the amenities and facilities are shared with members of the local community. This includes sharing education and medical facilities, sports and recreation. The company also shares access to bore wells, drinking water and the usage of colony roads. In its endeavor towards greenery, the company has also started various types of afforestation, horticulture and tree planting programmes near its cement plants. It not only reduces pollution but also helps conserve the mineral resources. The vacant spaces in the mines and the cement plans are being utilised for the purpose of planting of trees. In cement plants at Chaibasa, Kymore, Jamul and Gagal, greenery has been added to around 40 per cent of the total area which is around 10 per cent more than the normal norms that has been set. The management of these plants is stressing on the green belt development programmes. Due to the high production as well as the dedicated effort towards maintaining ecological balance and nature conservation, the company and its cement plans have been the recipient of a number of prestigious awards.

Awards & Accolades

ACC was the first recipient of ASSOCHAM’s first ever National Award for outstanding performance in promoting rural and agricultural development activities in 1976. Decades later, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry selected ACC as winner of its Good Corporate Citizen Award for the year 2002. Over the years, the company has received many awards and felicitations for achievements in rural and community development, safety, health, tree plantation, afforestation, clean mining, environment awareness and protection.

The Wadi cement plant of ACC Limited, in India’s southern state of Karnataka, now enjoys the distinction of being the world’s largest cement plant. The company recently completed this challenging integrated cement project in Karnataka comprising an expanded clinkering line of 12,500 TPD at Wadi together with two satellite cement grinding plants manufacturing Portland Slag cement and flyash based Portland Pozzolana Cement.

All operations at Wadi are now mammoth in scale and setting new trends and benchmarks – the largest limestone mining operations, the largest captive power plant in the industry, largest in inward and outbound logistics and the largest in bulk cement operations. The project reinforces ACC’s commitment to environment conservation in more ways than one. The plant incorporates sophisticated environment management systems and equipment that are designed to maintain very high levels of emission control.

Marching ahead With the government’s determined focus on infrastructure development and an optimistic outlook for overall GDP growth, the demand for cement will receive a considerable boost. The future for ACC looks bright and it is poised to grow at a much faster rate in coming decades due to its strong pan India presence, well entrenched dealership network, technical excellence, human resources, brand equity and market growth. Awards received by ACC National Award for Excellence in Water Management by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)

Outstanding Corporate Vision, Triple Impact – Business Performance Social & Environmental Action and Globalisation for 2009-10 from Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry
Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Award in two categories, Green Leadership and Community Engagement by Enterprise Asia.
Indira Priyadarshini Vrikshamitra Award – by The Ministry of Environment and Forests for ?extraordinary work? carried out in the area of afforestation.
Subh Karan Sarawagi Environment Award – by The Federation of Indian Mineral Industries for environment protection measures.
Drona Trophy – By Indian Bureau of Mines for extra ordinary efforts in protection of Environment and mineral conservation in the large mechanized mines sector.
Indira Gandhi Memorial National Award – for excellent performance in prevention of pollution and ecological development
Excellence in Management of Health, Safety and Environment : Certificate of Merit by Indian Chemical Manufacturers Association
Good Corporate Citizen Award – by PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry
FIMI National Award – for valuable contribution in Mining activities from the Federation of Indian Mineral Industry under the Ministry of Coal.
Rajya Sthariya Paryavaran Puraskar – for outstanding work in Environmental Protection and Environment Performance by the Madhya Pradesh Pollution. Control Board.
National Award for Fly Ash Utilisation – by Ministry of Power, Ministry of Environment & Forests and Dept of Science & Technology, Govt of India – for manufacture of Portland Pozzolana Cement.

Economy & Market

TSR Will Define Which Cement Companies Win India’s Net-Zero Race

Published

5 days ago

April 27, 2026

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Jignesh Kundaria, Director and CEO, Fornnax Technology

India is simultaneously grappling with two crises: a mounting waste emergency and an urgent need to decarbonise its most carbon-intensive industries. The cement sector, the second-largest in the world and the backbone of the nation’s infrastructure ambitions, sits at the centre of both. It consumes enormous quantities of fossil fuel, and it has the technical capacity to consume something else entirely: the waste our cities cannot get rid of.

According to CPCB and NITI Aayog projections, India generates approximately 62.4 million tonnes of municipal solid waste annually, with that figure expected to reach 165 million tonnes by 2030. Much of this waste is energy-rich and non-recyclable. At the same time, cement kilns operate at material temperatures of approximately 1,450 degrees Celsius, with gas temperatures reaching 2,000 degrees. This high-temperature environment is ideal for co-processing, ensuring the complete thermal destruction of organic compounds without generating toxic residues. The physics are in our favour. The infrastructure is not.

Pre-processing is not the support act for co-processing. It is the main event. Get the particle size wrong, get the moisture wrong, get the calorific value wrong and your kiln thermal stability will suffer the consequences.

The Regulatory Push Is Real

The Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules 2026 mandate that cement plants progressively replace solid fossil fuels with Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF), starting at a 5 per cent baseline and scaling to 15 per cent within six years. NITI Aayog’s 2026 Roadmap for Cement Sector Decarbonisation targets 20 to 25 per cent Thermal Substitution Rate (TSR) by 2030. Beyond compliance, every tonne of coal replaced by RDF generates measurable carbon reductions which is monetisable under India’s emerging Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS). TSR is no longer a sustainability metric. It is a financial lever.

Yet our own field assessments across multiple Indian cement plants reveal a sobering reality: the primary barrier to scaling AFR adoption is not waste availability. It is the fragmented and under-engineered pre-processing ecosystem that sits between the waste and the kiln.

Why Indian Waste Is a Different Engineering Problem

Indian municipal solid waste is not the material that imported shredding equipment was designed for. Our waste streams frequently exceed 40 per cent to 50 per cent moisture content, particularly during monsoon cycles, saturated with abrasive inerts including sand, glass, and stone. Plants relying on imported OEM equipment face months of downtime awaiting proprietary spare parts. Machines built for segregated, low-moisture waste fail quickly and disrupt the entire pre-processing operation in Indian conditions.

The two most common failures we observe are what I call the biting teeth problem and the chewing teeth problem. Plants relying solely on a primary shredder reduce bulk waste to large fractions, but the output remains too coarse for stable kiln combustion. Others attempt to use a secondary shredder as a standalone unit without a primary stage to pre-size the feed, leading to catastrophic mechanical failure. When both stages are present but mismatched in throughput capacity, the system becomes a bottleneck. Achieving the 40 to 70 tonnes per hour required for meaningful coal displacement demands a precisely coordinated two-stage process.

Engineering a Made-in-India Answer

At Fornnax, our response to these challenges is grounded in one principle: Indian waste demands Indian engineering. Our systems are built around feedstock homogeneity, the holy grail of kiln stability. Consistent particle size and predictable calorific value are the foundation of stable kiln combustion. Without them, no TSR target is achievable at scale.

Our SR-MAX2500 Dual Shaft Primary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive) processes raw, baled, or loosely mixed MSW, C&I waste, bulky waste, and plastics, reducing them to approximately 150 mm fractions at throughputs of up to 40 tonnes per hour. The R-MAX 3300 Single Shaft Secondary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive), introduced in 2025, takes that primary output and produces RDF fractions in the 30 to 80 mm range at up to 30 tonnes per hour, specifically optimised for consistent kiln feeding. We have also introduced electric drive configurations under the SR-100 HD series, with capacities between 5 and 40 tonnes per hour, already operational at a leading Indian waste-processing facility.

Looking ahead, Fornnax is expanding its portfolio with the upcoming SR-MAX3600 Hydraulic Drive primary shredder at up to 70 tonnes per hour and the R-MAX2100 Hydraulic drive secondary shredder at up to 20 tonnes per hour, designed specifically for the large-scale throughput that higher TSR ambitions require.

The Investment Case Is Now

The 2070 Net-Zero target is not a distant goal for India’s cement sector. It starts today, with decisions being made on the plant floor.

The SWM Rules 2026 are already in effect, requiring cement plants to replace coal with RDF. Carbon credit markets are opening up, and coal prices are not going to get cheaper. Every tonne of coal a cement plant replaces with waste-derived fuel saves money on one side and generates carbon credit revenue on the other. Pre-processing infrastructure is no longer just a compliance requirement. It is a business investment with a measurable return.

The good news is that nothing is missing. The technology works. The waste is available in every Indian city. The government has provided the policy direction. The only thing standing between where the industry is today and where it needs to be is the commitment to build the right infrastructure.

The cement companies that move now will not just meet the regulations. They will be ahead of every competitor that waits.

About The Author

Jignesh Kundaria is the Director and CEO of Fornnax Technology. Over an experience spanning more than two decades in the recycling industry, he has established himself as one of India’s foremost voices on waste-to-fuel technology and alternative fuel infrastructure.

Concrete

WCA Welcomes SiloConnect as associate corporate member

Published

3 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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The World Cement Association (WCA) has announced SiloConnect as its newest associate corporate member, expanding its network of technology providers supporting digitalisation in the cement industry. SiloConnect offers smart sensor technology that provides real-time visibility of cement inventory levels at customer silos, enabling producers to monitor stock remotely and plan deliveries more efficiently. The solution helps companies move from reactive to proactive logistics, improving delivery planning, operational efficiency and safety by reducing manual inspections. The technology is already used by major cement producers such as Holcim, Cemex and Heidelberg Materials and is deployed across more than 30 countries worldwide.

Concrete

TotalEnergies and Holcim Launch Floating Solar Plant in Belgium

Published

3 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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TotalEnergies and Holcim have commissioned a floating solar power plant in Obourg, Belgium, built on a rehabilitated former chalk quarry that has been converted into a lake. The project has a generation capacity of 31 MW and produces around 30 GWh of renewable electricity annually, which will be used to power Holcim’s nearby industrial operations. The project is currently the largest floating solar installation in Europe dedicated entirely to industrial self-consumption. To ensure minimal impact on the surrounding landscape, more than 700 metres of horizontal directional drilling were used to connect the solar installation to the electrical substation. The project reflects ongoing collaboration between the two companies to support industrial decarbonisation through renewable energy solutions and innovative infrastructure development.