Lafarge’s total cement production capacity in the Indian market currently stands at around 8 million tonne. Lafarge India has charted plans to expand its presence nationally in the coming years. In addition to capacity expansions at Sonadih and Jojobera, the Company is building on the success of its regional development models and is in the process of starting projects in Rajasthan, Karnataka, Meghalaya and Himachal Pradesh.Lafarge entered the Indian market in 1999, through its cement business, with the acquisition of Tata Steel’s cement activity. This acquisition was followed by the purchase of the Raymond Cement facility in 2001. Lafarge currently has four cement plants in India: two plants in the state of Chhattisgarh (Sonadih and Arasmeta) and Grinding Units in Jharkhand (Jojobera) and West Bengal (Mejia).In recent years, Lafarge has significantly enlarged its operations across its three business divisions – Cement, Aggregates & Concrete and Gypsum. Lafarge today is the market leader in the ready-mix concrete business with around 80 plants, following its acquisition of L&T Concrete with an annual capacity of around 6.3 million cubic metres.Lafarge has been committed to sustainable development for many years, pursuing a strategy that combines industrial know-how with performance, value creation, respect for employees and local cultures, environmental protection and the conservation of natural resources and energy. To make advances in building materials, Lafarge places the customer at the heart of its concerns. It offers the construction industry and the general public innovative solutions bringing greater safety, comfort and quality to their everyday surroundings. Safety is the cornerstone of the Company’s performance culture and long-standing people-centric tradition. All Lafarge India plants have an innate culture of safety consciousness and assured best-in-class Health & Safety standards.Products offered:Long-standing international experience and wide diversity of the Lafarge Group provides the company with unrivalled understanding on the intrinsic properties of cement and its premium quality. Lafarge Cement currently holds the leadership position in Eastern Indian markets, producing high performance blended cements in Portland Slag Cement (PSC) and Portland Pozzolona Cement (PPC) variants. Lafarge enjoys high brand equity through its different brands; Lafarge Concreto, Lafarge Duraguard and Lafarge Cement.BRANDS DuraguardThe strength and longevity of cement depends on its granular composition along with its chemical constituents. Research further proves that the unique particle size distribution of Duraguard cement helps in making a denser concrete, which prevents the porosity as well as the water ingress. The use of high quality cementitious material helps in converting the free lime to cement, leading to prevention of leeching which ultimately gives higher impermeability. This also reduces development of cracks due to shrinkage & expansion of the structure caused by the environmental stress.Lafarge ConcretoConcreto was developed in Lafarge’s state-of-the art laboratories, which are extensively networked with its Central Research Institute in France. The company has leveraged its combined know-how of more than 170 years and its experience across 75 countries to develop this unique productLafarge Concreto a premium cement of international standards from the house of Lafarge can fulfill the artistic needs of an individual. Along with superior structural strength and enhanced durability, Lafarge Concreto is the only cement that also offers aesthetic benefits. Other than acting as very strong home-building cement, Lafarge Concreto also adds value to a building by becoming the key factor in its decor. Concreto is malleable and can easily form any shape required by the homebuilder.Lafarge CementLafarge Cement is a very high performance blended Portland Slag Cement available in the major markets in East India. Lafarge Cement is well accepted and appreciated by the consumers for its superior product quality and the consistency in product delivery.Lafarge Cement is suitable for all types of the construction applications -Residential Building, Complexes, RCC work, Multistoried buildings, Mass concrete works, underground concrete works like foundations, roofing and all types of plasters, masonry works etc.Home building centerGoing beyond product innovation, Lafarge India established the unique Home Building Centres to help homebuilders create their dream homes. A first-of-its-kind initiative in India, these centres provide homebuilders the opportunity to interact with different construction experts and find out how to save time, money and effort, explore design options and decide on the right building materials and more.Lafarge Invention AwardsInnovation is a strategic priority for Lafarge, which dedicates 150 million euros per year to technology and innovation in products, systems and industrial processes. With an industrial presence in India spanning more than 10 years, Lafarge is today seeking to promote innovation for sustainable construction in India and to strengthen its ties with materials science and construction experts across the country.Lafarge, has announced the launch of the Lafarge Invention Awards 2011, a competition to reward innovative projects in India related to building materials and contributing to sustainable construction. The competition will target entrepreneurs or new companies, engineering consultants, architects, researchers and academics in India, who will have from September 1st until November 30, 2011 to submit their entries, via a secure website www.lafarge-inventionawards.com.The fast pace of Indian economic and demographic growth is generating immense needs for new infrastructure and housing, which must be met through new, innovative approaches to construction that take into account social, economic and environmental imperatives.Announcing the launch of the competition, Pascal Casanova, Director of Research and Development at Lafarge, said, "Developing solutions to meet the specific needs of the Indian market requires close partnership with local actors in the construction chain. This is why we recently opened a joint laboratory with IIT Madras to push research on concrete quality and durability. We are today seeking to strengthen our collaboration with Indian construction innovators, through the Lafarge Invention Awards 2011."The Lafarge Invention Awards aim to reward innovative projects related to Lafarge building materials – aggregates, cement, concrete and gypsum – and that contribute to sustainable construction. Projects submitted should be based on an invention less than 5 years old. They should involve a new product, industrial process, construction method or service and should have reached at least the prototype phase, ideally demonstrated in a real construction project. The competition was first launched in 2010, focusing on the European market for its first edition.The three winning projects from the Lafarge Invention Awards 2011 will be selected in March 2012, by a panel of Lafarge executives and renowned experts, with prize winners receiving respectively Rs 10,00,000 INR, Rs 500,000 and Rs 2,50,000.Iit madras & lafarge collaborate to scale new heights in concrete researchLafarge Research Center, the R&D wing of Lafarge Group, collaborated with IIT Madras, Chennai to conduct research on the durability and long term performance of concrete. Lafarge and the Department of Civil Engineering of Indian Institute of Technology Madras is setting up a state-of-the-art laboratory dedicated to the study of the mechanisms influencing the degradation of reinforced concrete structures.FICCI Safety excellence awardLafarge India bagged the Platinum Award (1st Prize) in the large scale manufacturing units category. Lafarge India was selected from over 200 companies who participated in the evaluation. A thorough audit of compliance of Health & Safety Standards by a distinguished panel was undertaken at Lafarge India’s Sonadih Cement Plant. The Sonadih plant offered potent glimpses of how implementation and practice of Health & Safety parameters like WAH (Working at Height), PPE (Personal Protective equipments) usage, Energy Isolation, LOTOTO (Lock Out, Tag Out, Try Out) and Transportation Safety by Lafarge India has lead to continuous improvement in performance.At Lafarge India Health & Safety is of topmost priority. The company has undertaken various initiatives over the years to create a safety culture among its employees and all stakeholders. The month of June every year is celebrated as a Health & Safety month across all Lafarge sites globally and in India to help exchange learnings and processes and engage people towards creating greater awareness for health & safety. Due to its stringent policies and procedures, Lafarge India has been able to clock 42 million man hours without any major incident or accident.Uday Khanna, Chairman, Lafarge India says, "We are delighted to have won the Platinum Award (1st Prize) for FICCI Safety Excellence Award. This is a very positive development and represents the industry’s acknowledgement of the Health & Safety initiatives being undertaken by Lafarge India across all its plants. Lafarge places the stakeholders at the heart of its concerns. We sincerely hope that these initiatives will contribute in achieving "zero fatal accident" rate and "zero work related illness" rate so that Lafarge can have one of the best health and safety records among global industrial groups."Earlier in the year, CII Eastern Region recognized the work being done by our teams in creating awareness about safety practices within and outside plant premises. Lafarge India bagged the second prize of the Safety, Health & Environment Award 2010-11.Corporate Social ResponsibilityLafarge India as a Group is convinced that sustained economic growth cannot occur without respect for local communities, social progress and environmental protection. The Year 2010-2011 has seen the further strengthening of our corporate social responsibility program.Quoting from Lafarge’s Principles of Action: "Wherever present we operate with the utmost respect for the common interest of present and future generations; we act as responsible members of our communities by contributing to the development of people, their health, rights and well-being by generating economic growth and supporting social, educational and cultural advancement."Community needs assessmentA comprehensive Community Needs Assessment (CNA) survey was conducted in villages across 7 states; Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Meghalaya, Rajasthan and West Bengal.The objectives of the CNA Study was to undertake an assessment of community needs using a participatory approach, authenticate and validate the communities perceived needs vis-a-vis actual conditions and mapping of basic needs and poverty incidence.CSR Core VerticalsSurakshit Bharat : Safety Initiatives : 3 States, 14 Villages, 22,008 Citizens Swasth Bharat : Health Initiatives 4 States, 32 Villages, 44,699 Citizens Saksham Bharat : Employability Initiatives : 5 States, 47 Villages, 935 Citizens Sakshar Bharat : Education Initiatives ; 5 States, 56 Villages, 4,241 Students Dwellings and Other Rural InfrastructureDue to a resource crunch most rural communities are not able to build their rural infrastructure. Lafarge India through it’s foundation NIDHEE has helped address several community infrastructure issues by building community halls, refurbishment of local temples, upgradation of libraries, construction of school boundary walls, improvement and cleaning of drainage areas, building a passenger waiting area at railway stations etc.Sustainable DevelopmentLafarge has renewed its commitment to sustainable development with the launch of its Sustainability Ambitions 2012. This roadmap puts people and the environment at the heart of the Group’s concerns.Cementitious materials like fly ash and slag, by-products of the power and steel industries are used in cement manufacture to decrease CO2 emissions, reduce the quantity of natural resources used and facilitate the disposal of industrial wastes.Lafarge screens all its quarries and has introduced a biodiversity plan for its sites. The quarry restoration programme in India led to planting of 1.5 million trees.Lafarge’s stringent systems for quality control and environment protection through monitoring of emissions, discharges and a strong focus on Health & Safety have earned it ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS1801 accreditations.