More than a century ago, in the year 1911, my forefathers started the company, Tandur & Shahabad Stone and now we are stockist of the major cement giant, UltraTech. The annual sale of the company is 100,000 tonne. Operating all over India, we enjoy great support from the cement firms. Holding the position of Chairman, Cement Stocks and Dealers Association, Mumbai, I feel cement dealers commonly face three main issues: The first issue is that the margins have remained unchanged since last five-six years, while the costs of the dealers have gone up substantially, so the cement companies need to hike margins. The second is the bad debts faced by the dealers. The builders and the infrastructure contractors fail to pay up bills of the dealers and these bad debts have adversely impacted the business of the dealers. The third issue pertains to the legal aspect concerning the recovery of dues from defaulters. In the cement trade, the documentation of transactions is not taken care of and most of the transactions happen verbally, recovering dues poses a major problem and since the verbal transaction cannot be proved in a court of law, the outstanding dues turn into bad debts.
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