Economy & Market

“RMC business will see a growth of 7-10% in the next 5 years”

Published

8 years ago

April 30, 2018

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– Arun Shukla, Chief of RMX & Aggregates, Nuvoco Vistas Corporation
Nuvoco Corporation (formerly LaFarge India) was acquired by Nirma about 18 months back. Nuvoco has three business verticals – cement, ready mix concrete (RMC) and aggregates. In cement, the company has plants Chattisgarh, West Bengal and Chittorgarh. In RMC, the company has close to 70 plants across India. In aggregates, the company has two quarries – one near Mumbai in Badlapur and other one in Kotputli in Rajasthan. Considering the focus of government on infrastructure and housing, how do you view the business of concrete and aggregates in the next five years?
I am quite bullish about the market for concrete and aggregates. Cement consumption in India is close to 180 kg per person per year, which is very low. Out of that, 60 per cent is being used for concrete. If you compare this consumption with China, which is also a developing country, their growth rate is much faster than ours. China’s cement consumption is close to 2,000 kg per person per annum.
Given the push on infrastructure and housing for all, I see an immense potential of RMC going further. Our ambition is to partner with the vision of our country and do a lot of infrastructure development, and contribute towards giving housing to all people who are not having houses as of now. The next five years will be quite bullish for RMC business.
In typical construction sites, there are issues like scarcity of labours. In smaller towns, there are site mixes. But now, the pollution control agencies are so strict that they are not allowing you to have site mixes. So, RMC is bound to go to all those places where even site mix is practiced. I am quite sure that the RMC business, and I see a growth of 7-10 per cent in the next five years. Right now, RMC capacity is close to 45 million cum3, which is the relevant market size where we operate in.
It will double (to 100 million cm3) in the next 4-5 years. Traditionally RMC industry has been dominated by local and unorganised players. Do you see any change in the structure?
Factually this industry is quite fragmented. If you take the top five players, they are holding a market share of close to 35-40 per cent. And rest of the concrete requirement is being fulfilled by local players. That way this is quite fragmented. But there are a lot of regulations and structural changes (like RERA and GST) that have happened in the recent past. These changes will encourage the industry going forward. So there is going to be much more level-playing field. I think, GST will impact logistics. For supporting individual house builders, what sort of customer service offerings are available from Nuvoco concrete and what is its USP?
In this, we stand out from others. In our portfolio, we have a lot of value-added products that are going to address concerns that individual homebuilders have. We have a product called ‘Agile’, which is a self compacting concrete, a free flow concrete. So there you do not need much labour because I talked about the scarcity of labour at job site. We have other products like ‘Artiste’, wherein you can really have a different texture, different kind of patterns, and this is going to be a good alternative to tiles. Tiles have smaller life, but if you use Artiste, it will have a longer life.
We have a lot of other products as well. We have got light-weight concrete, which is called ‘X Light’. A typical concrete has a density of 2,400 kg per cm3, but our concrete has around 800 to 1,600 per kg.
We have solutions for hospitals too. In cancer hospitals there are radiations done. We have a solution wherein the radiation does not come out. This concrete is radiation proof. We have a solution wherein we can do concrete in running water as well. Then, we have a concrete solution for cold weather where the temperature is very low. We do produce from M35 to M95.
We have Insta-mix, which is a revolutionary product in the RMC industry, and we supply green concrete in bags. For eg: If any trucks cannot reach the construction site, then we have a solution of supplying wet concrete in bags. You just need to go and pour it on site, no need to add water. This has got retention of up to eight hours, while normal concrete has only retention period of four hours. This product is having very good acceptability in the market because this addresses the concerns of typically constricted bylanes of India where you have a small requirement of concrete. From LaFarge to Nuvoco – how did this brand transition take place?
We emphasised that we are going to retain all those key features for which Lafarge is known in the market. Our USP was to kind of differentiate ourselves in the market by way of providing different products and service to our customers. After this transition, we are much more focused in this area. Our endeavour is to exceed expectations of customers in terms of delivery of service and quality of product. All those products which we had before, are still being continued. That way our focus is on differentiating solution-centric organisation, getting ready for customers requirement, giving them the quality they want, fulfilling our commitment to the customer. We have demonstrated all these qualities with much more focus. That is how our customers do not feel any change. Our products are well accepted, our entire team is intact including me. I am there in this organisation since beginning. Where it really matters, nothing has changed. We have been in touch with our customers throughout the entire transitions. Wherever a change was taking place they were kept in the loop, right from the CEO down the line. They had access to everybody. The entire transition took place very smoothly.The market is shifting from natural sand to manufactured sand. How do you look at this picture.
We do have an opportunity to help in building this business. This is our vision and now we are going to be helpful in creating sustainable and smarter product. There is push on infrastructure and housing, and we will be part of the growth story. We are operating two crushers one near Mumbai and second close to the NCR region. But gradually now market is shifting from this natural sand to manufactured sand. But I think gradually things are going to change because this sand issue will be there to an extent going forward as well. So better to find some solution by which we come out with raw material which can replace sand. So like in Mumbai, there is no natural sand. Entire concrete is being made of crushed sand. But still in some of the markets, I think people have a mindset that natural sand and river sand is better than manufactured sand. Things are changing and I am sure things are going to change gradually. What is the role of cost in manufactured sand?
That depends because raw material cost is basically logistics intensive. If your logistics cost is high – be it natural sand or not – cost is going to be in that proportion. You can have a fixed rule that natural sand is costlier than crushed sand and vice versa. It all depends on the logistics.Can it be manufactured anywhere or it requires a special kind of raw material?
You need a rock for that. And manufacture sand is going to be sustainable solution for this scarcity of natural sand.What technological changes you foresee in construction strategies of infrastructure sector which may affect your sector?
Construction industry in India is still evolving. We have issues of skilled manpower. Updated technology and also the availability of routine product. I see a good scope of improvement in construction industry in India. We do have an expertise of supplying very high grade of concrete. Typically in India till now lower grades of concrete was being used. But now people have realised if they use this higher grade of concrete then they are going to get multiple benefit. I think the kind of knowhow which we are going to share with our customers with that they are going to reduce their overall cost and also fasten their construction, retaining the quality without compromising. This is what we are partnering with our customers. Also our strategy is to partner with our customer right at the beginning when they conceptualise their project, we suggest them that if they are going to use these products then that is going to bring down their overall cost and ease of execution. And we have got construction development and innovation centre to support our initiative. We keep on doing innovation in building material space as to what is the next step and what is the next package that is going to help all construction sites.Tell us about customer discovery.
We have a nice process of what we call customer discovery. We go and sit with customers and we understand them and what all issues they are facing and based on that, we try to go back to them with some solution. So there is a process like we go and discover customers requirement, then we work on various ideas to address those issues. These are steps of innovation that we follow. We have a very systematic approach of understanding customers requirements. Insta-mix was born out of one such need and that is why it was created in our laboratory in India.How do you manage smaller quantities?
If you ask ready mix plant to supply one third of cubic metre they are not going to supply because of cost factor. How will a 6-cm3 truck carry one-third of cubic metre. And if at all they are going to supply they are going to charge you heavily. We are the only company to supply wet concrete in bags. It is supplied in buckets but not bags. So we have a monopoly in that segment.What is your prime focus – retail or institutional business?
We are looking for opportunities in all segments. As there is a lot of push on infrastructure and housing, these businesses will offer us a lot of opportunity, which we do not want to miss. We are expanding ourselves to areas where we do not have any presence and we find a good opportunity. For instance, we have set up a plant in Lucknow very recently. We see a lot is happening in the northern part of India. We have plans to set up plants in other emerging markets as well. We want to grow in the retail segment too because the market is offering an opportunity and customers are looking for solutions. We have expertise and knowhow and we will go and reach out to them and supply them the solution they want.What is the market size for decorative concrete in India and how is it shaping up?
There is no structured data available as such. We are one of the biggest players of decorative concretes in India. This segment is growing, you only need to to make your customers aware of the solution and convert them from one solution to another. I will not limit this segment to a particular cubic metre as of now.That means you want to bring this from unorganised sector to organised sector?
Decorative concrete is a solution that his going to last for years to come. Our products are used in amusement parks, especially at entrance where you have a lot of footfalls. This can withstand that kind of pressure and wear and tear and still be there for decades to come.Have you associated with any infrastructure project that is approaching completion?
We are really proud to be associated with lot of good infrastructure projects. For instance, we were engaged in Delhi Metro. We have also partnered with some of the construction companies for Noida metro. We are executing Jaipur Metro job and we are one of the suppliers in concrete of Mumbai metro. Our contribution and presence is quite good. In fact, we are known to be an expert in metro projects. Our focus is going to be there on infrastructure jobs because this is the place where we can give a lot of additional value to the contractor and the agencies which are there. How do you handle safety and environment in RMC and what about conservation of concrete?
It very important and it is very close to our heart as well. health safety and environment is part of our value system. Our philosophy is that wherever we are operating, our environmental footprint should be the minimum. How we are going to conserve the scarce resources and how are you going to ensure that we do not disturb the ecology of the ambience? We shall offer a product which is kind of conserving some natural resources. For instance now you must have heard of green building concept. How we are going to reduce cement consumption in ready mix concrete? If you are going to reduce cement content in ready mix then you are going to help environment in many ways. One is to reduce carbon footprint. Second is also you are going to preserve limestone which is scarce and you do not have limestone reserve forever. If you are not going to conserve it today then how future generations are going to take benefit of that reserve. This is our philosophy. So we work on kind of designing a product wherein we can use alternative raw material to reduce limestone consumption without impacting quality product. Health and safety I think we have proper system wherein any person who is coming to our plant is properly trained, he is given safety induction, he has to go through a medical test and then he is deployed at job site. We do have a branch where each and every day our plant people are going through a checklist. Health and safety is a holistic approach for us. We are not only kind of trying to take responsibility of our people but all the stakeholders are involved in our business. All those truck drivers who are being deployed at our plant they mandatorily have to go through this training on defensive driving. We have got defensive driving training. They will go through that training. So suppose my plant is there and I fit it at one place and job site is 10 km is away. Then we prepare this with risk management and we communicate this to our rider. So all those hazards and all those risky areas or traffic areas, we tell them before that this is how they are going to negotiate on that track. We have got a very systematic approach. Any equipment where we do some preventive maintenance or breakdown maintenance we have got a system of permit so our people are going to take permit, we prepare this and we risk assessment of that job, we communicate that risk assessment to our team members, these are risk and this is how you are going to eliminate and these things you are going to deploy. Then only those guys go and work on it. So we have a very robust system of health and safety. Wherein we are not going to take even an iota of risk. For us doing business is alright but if you can save a person’s life and I think we have done it.
Also our customers have appreciated it and requested us to conduct workshops at their own sites. We do that also. For us it is important that it is not just we who are contentious but as many people we can inform and educate about this it is only everybody else who benefits out of it.

Concrete

UltraTech Cement expands green logistics with 600+ electric truck fleet

Published

5 days ago

September 3, 2026

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The e-truck fleet will be used to transport five million MT of clinker and other key materials with potential of over 1,17,000 tonnes of net annual CO₂ reduction, displacing the equivalent of 39 million litres of diesel per year.

Mumbai

UltraTech Cement Limited, an Aditya Birla Group company and the world’s largest cement company by sales volume and capacity outside China, has announced that it will scale up its electric vehicle fleet in its logistics operations to 600+ EV trucks by December 2026.

UltraTech has signed service contracts with leading EV prime mover manufacturers including Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland, IPLTech, Energy in Motion and Sany, along with their subsidiaries and other third-party logistics providers, to deploy EV trucks.

The total fleet of 600+ EV trucks will transport about five million MT of clinker and other key materials per annum across Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Odisha. Once fully operational, this fleet of over 600 EV trucks will enable a net annual CO₂ reduction of more than 1,17,000 tonnes, displacing the equivalent of 39 million litres of diesel per year.

K C Jhanwar, Managing Director, UltraTech Cement Limited, said, “UltraTech is expanding sustainability beyond its plants by adopting greener logistics solutions. This large-scale transition to green logistics underscores our focus on decarbonising every link of our value chain and supports our commitment to achieving Net Zero.”

UltraTech has been a pioneer in advancing sustainable transport in the cement sector, being the first cement company to deploy heavy-duty electric trucks for long-haul transport of clinker and other materials at scale. The company was among the first in India to introduce green logistics, deploying CNG trucks in 2021 and electric trucks in 2024. UltraTech currently operates 850+ trucks as part of its green logistics operations, including CNG and electric trucks.

UltraTech, with a grey cement capacity of over 200 MTPA in India, operates one of the country’s most complex logistics networks. Its electrification strategy covers the entire supply chain—from mine-to-plant movement to inter-plant transport of clinker and other key materials.

The $ 10 billion UltraTech, the cement flagship company of the Aditya Birla Group, has a total Grey Cement capacity of 205.5 MTPA and White Cement/Putty capacity of 3.2 MTPA. It is a signatory to the GCCA Climate Ambition 2050 and has committed to the Net Zero Concrete roadmap announced by GCCA.

Concrete

Protect Your Margins

Published

2 weeks ago

August 28, 2026

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In a research-backed article, Dr SB Hegde examines why carbon-adjusted profitability and LC3 will decide the next set of winners in cement manufacturing.

The Indian cement industry has achieved world-class operational efficiency through lower specific energy consumption, high plant utilisation and a reduced average clinker factor of approximately 67.5 per cent. These traditional measures of operational excellence remain essential. However, they are no longer sufficient. Carbon now carries a measurable financial cost under India’s Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS) and under European carbon markets. Future leadership will be defined by carbon-adjusted profitability, the ability to generate strong returns while systematically lowering the carbon intensity of every ton sold.
Limestone calcined clay cement (LC3) offers a practical, scalable pathway to achieve this dual objective. By replacing up to 50 per cent of clinker with calcined clay and limestone, LC3 can reduce CO2 emissions by 30–40 per cent while delivering comparable or superior durability performance.
This article examines the technical foundations of LC3, European industrial practices, the emerging Indian carbon market and a concrete roadmap for Indian companies to embed carbon-adjusted metrics and LC3 into daily operations, incentives and commercial strategy.

Limits of traditional operational excellence
For many years, plant performance has been judged primarily by five indicators: specific heat consumption, specific power consumption, kiln and mill utilisation, clinker factor and overall equipment effectiveness. These metrics drove continuous improvement and helped the industry reduce energy use and increase the share of blended cement. Three structural changes have rendered them incomplete as sole measures of success.
First, carbon now carries a real or opportunity cost. Plants that improve volume or lower cash cost while raising or stagnating emissions intensity create a hidden liability that will surface as CCTS trading matures and as green procurement expands.
Second, lower-carbon products such as LC3 and high-performance blended cements are creating differentiated market segments. Customers in infrastructure, real estate and export-oriented construction are beginning to specify embodied-carbon limits.
Third, investors and lenders increasingly treat carbon intensity as a financial risk factor. Traditional KPIs can mask the divergence between short-term cash profit and long-term carbon-adjusted value.

What is carbon-adjusted profitability?
Carbon-adjusted profitability evaluates normal profit after explicit adjustment for carbon performance. A practical expression is:
Carbon-Adjusted EBITDA = Conventional EBITDA – Carbon Cost + Green Premium Income
Carbon cost may be an internal carbon price, the actual cost of purchasing Carbon Credit Certificates under CCTS, or the opportunity cost of high emissions relative to peers. Green premium income arises when customers pay more for verified lower-carbon cement or when the company sells surplus credits. Tracking both conventional and carbon-adjusted profit side-by-side gives management a clearer picture of value creation under evolving market rules.

Table 1. Traditional KPIs versus Carbon-Adjusted Leadership Metrics
Traditional Focus New Leadership Metric Why It Matters
Specific energy consumption Emissions intensity (kg CO2/t cement) Directly linked to future CCTS and CBAM costs
Kiln utilisation Carbon-adjusted contribution margin Reveals true value of incremental volume
Clinker factor Share of lower-carbon products sold (incl. LC3) Measures commercial success of the transition
Power cost per tonne Effective carbon cost per tonne sold Expose hidden liabilities
Absolute EBITDA Carbon-adjusted EBITDA + green premium Aligning profit with future market reality

LC3: Technical foundations and performance advantages
LC3 is a ternary blended cement that typically combines approximately 50 per cent clinker, 30 per cent calcined clay, 15 per cent limestone and 5 per cent gypsum (the classic LC3-50 formulation). The decisive technical advantage is that clay is calcined at 700–850 °C, far below the 1,450 °C required for clinker production. This lower temperature, together with the substantial reduction in clinker content, delivers CO2 reductions of 30–40 per cent relative to ordinary Portland cement (OPC).
Chemistry is synergistic. Calcined kaolinitic clay (metakaolin) reacts with calcium hydroxide from clinker hydration and with limestone to form additional C-A-S-H gel and carboaluminate phases. These phases densify the microstructure, reduce porosity and improve durability.
Field experience shows superior resistance to chloride ingress, sulphate attack and alkali–silica reaction. Early-age strength can match OPC with high-reactivity clays; later-age strengths routinely meet 42.5 and 52.5 grade requirements.
Importantly, LC3 does not require high-purity kaolin. Clays with 40 per cent or even lower kaolinite content can be activated successfully, expanding raw-material availability across India. Calcination can use adapted rotary kilns or dedicated flash calciners, making the technology compatible with existing plant infrastructure and far less capital-intensive than carbon capture.
Economic analyses show that LC3 can be produced at equal or lower cost than OPC in many locations because of reduced energy demand and cheaper clay. Life-cycle assessments consistently report 30–40 per cent lower embodied CO2 per tonne of cement.
Table 2. Comparative profile: OPC versus LC3-50
Parameter OPC LC3-50
Typical clinker content ~95 per cent ~50 per cent
CO2 emissions (relative) Baseline (≈0.85 t CO2/t cement process + fuel) 30–40 per cent lower
Clay calcination temperature Not applicable 700–850 °C
Key hydration products C-S-H, portlandite, ettringite C-A-S-H + carboaluminates
Chloride & sulphate resistance Good Superior
Production cost potential Baseline Equal or lower in most locations
Infrastructure compatibility Existing High (minor adaptations)

In India, commercial adoption has begun in earnest. JK Cement commenced the first commercial production of LC3 in the Indian subcontinent at its Mangrol plant in Rajasthan in 2025 under BIS standard IS 18189.
By early 2026, approximately 2,000 tonnes had been produced and sold, avoiding an estimated 500 tonnes of CO2. JK Lakshmi Cement followed with commercial launch of its Green PRO LC3 grade from the Jaykaypuram plant. As of mid-2026, two producers are supplying LC3 to the market. The first large-scale infrastructure application is the Noida International Airport (Jewar), where LC3 was used in the runway and a building complex, demonstrating full constructability and performance under demanding conditions. These early volumes are still small relative to national cement demand, but they mark the critical transition from pilot to commercial reality. Companies that scale capacity now will be positioned to capture both CCTS credits and emerging green-procurement demand.

Why the shift is accelerating
According to the World Bank’s State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2026, direct carbon pricing now covers nearly 30 per cent of global greenhouse-gas emissions and generated more than US$107 billion in public revenue in 2025. The average global carbon price stands at approximately US$21 per tonne, although regional prices vary widely.
In Europe, the EU ETS price has traded near €80–85 per tonen in mid-2026. Free allocation for cement is being withdrawn in parallel with CBAM. European producers therefore face a clear signal: every tonne of avoided CO2 improves both compliance and competitiveness. Holcim has scaled calcined-clay production, including Europe’s first dedicated line at Saint-Pierre-la-Cour (France) and a second line in the Czech Republic (2026). Heidelberg Materials, Cementir (FUTURECEM) and others have commercialised low-clinker calcined-clay blends across multiple markets, showing that carbon-adjusted profitability is already reshaping capital allocation in the world’s most mature carbon market.India’s CCTS is now operational. Binding emission intensity targets apply to 186 cement facilities for FY 2025–26 and FY 2026–27. Average required reductions for integrated plants are modest (around 2.7 per cent by FY 2027), yet the direction is clear.
Trading of Carbon Credit Certificates is expected in the second half of 2026, with early prices likely in the `800–1,500 per tonne range. Plants that outperform targets can sell credits; those that underperform must buy them or face compensation. Cement is well positioned to be a net supplier of credits if clinker factor continues to fall through LC3 and other low-clinker systems.

Way forward for India
India starts from a strong baseline, world-class energy efficiency and a clinker factor already lower than the global average. The next competitive frontier is the deliberate reduction of process emissions through clinker substitution at scale. LC3 is uniquely suited to Indian conditions because suitable clays are widely distributed, the technology fits existing kiln and grinding infrastructure, and the resulting product can meet the performance demands of both infrastructure and building construction.
A practical national pathway contains five interlocking elements:

Standards and acceptance: Accelerated finalisation and promotion of BIS specifications for calcined-clay and limestone–calcined-clay cements will remove a key barrier to commercial uptake. Alignment with European practice (EN 197-5) can facilitate knowledge transfer and export readiness.
Supply-chain development: Investment in flash calcination capacity and systematic characterisation of regional clay deposits will secure reliable, low-cost feedstock. Existing rotary kilns can be adapted for initial volumes while dedicated calciners are built.
Incentive alignment: Part of variable compensation for plant managers, sales teams and senior leadership should be linked to emissions intensity reduction and to the volume of lower-carbon products (including LC3) sold. Without this link, traditional volume and cost targets will continue to dominate behaviour.
Product-level carbon accounting: Reliable measurement of emissions intensity at the individual cement grade level, supported by third-party verification where required, is essential for both CCTS compliance and credible green claims.
Demand-side pull: Green public procurement policies that specify maximum embodied-carbon thresholds for major infrastructure projects will create a predictable market for LC3 and other low-carbon cements, accelerating scale and cost reduction.
Companies that treat LC3 as a strategic product line rather than a niche offering will be better positioned to generate surplus Carbon Credit Certificates, capture any emerging green premium, and protect margins as carbon costs rise.

Organisational changes required
Technical capability alone is insufficient. Three organisational shifts are required.
Daily management: Emissions intensity must appear on the same daily and monthly dashboards as heat consumption, power consumption and utilization. Plant reviews should examine both conventional and carbon-adjusted results.
Incentives: A meaningful portion of bonuses for plant heads, technical teams and sales leadership should be tied to lower emissions intensity and successful commercialisation of LC3 and other low-carbon grades.
Commercial approach: Sales teams need clear volume and pricing targets for lower-carbon products, supported by technical service that helps customers specify and place the material correctly. Without commercial pull, excellent technical performance remains under-utilised.

Table 3. Three-stage roadmap to carbon-adjusted profitability
Time Horizon Priority Actions Expected Outcome
Next 12 months Add emissions intensity to plant dashboards; establish internal carbon price; initiate LC3 pilot production and customer trials Visibility and early organisational learning
12–24 months Revise incentive systems; scale LC3 and other low-carbon grades to key accounts; secure third-party verification capability People and sales aligned with carbon goals
24–36 months Embed carbon-adjusted metrics in board reporting and capital allocation; expand calcined-clay capacity Full system integration and competitive advantage

Questions senior leaders should ask
Boards can accelerate the transition by insisting on answers to a short list of questions:
• Is our carbon-adjusted profit improving, stable or declining relative to conventional EBITDA?
• Did recent volume growth improve or worsen our emissions intensity?
• What share of sales already comes from lower-carbon products, including LC3, and what is the trajectory?
• How exposed is our capital expenditure plan to rising carbon costs under CCTS and potential CBAM-related requirements?
• Do our incentive systems still reward only volume and cost, or have they been updated to include carbon performance?
Treating carbon with the same seriousness as energy cost or kiln utilization does not diminish operational excellence; it expands the definition of excellence to match the new competitive reality.

Looking ahead
By 2030 the gap between leading and lagging cement companies will not be decided by who records the lowest specific heat consumption. It will be decided by who delivers the strongest carbon-adjusted profits.
Absolute emissions may still rise as national production grows. That is not the issue. Companies that reduce intensity year after year and successfully sell cleaner products will pull ahead in both domestic and export markets. Those that do not will fall behind, even if their traditional efficiency numbers look strong.
Operational excellence built the Indian cement industry. It remains the foundation. It is no longer the complete picture. Carbon-adjusted profitability is the clearer measure of success.
LC3 is not a distant technology. It is available now. It cuts CO3 by 30–40 per cent, works with existing plants, and is already in commercial production in India. Companies that treat it as a strategic product, not a pilot, will protect their margins and generate tradable credits.
Leaders who act now will place carbon metrics on daily dashboards, link incentives to intensity reduction and LC3 sales, invest in calcined-clay capacity, and build commercial capability to sell lower-carbon products. They will shape the next chapter of the industry.

References

World Bank. (2026). State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2026. Washington, DC: World Bank Group.
International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP). (2026). India Carbon Credit Trading Scheme – Status and Coverage. Berlin: ICAP.
Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change / Bureau of Energy Efficiency. (2025). Greenhouse Gases Emission Intensity Target Rules, 2025. New Delhi: Government of India.
Scrivener, K., Martirena, F., Bishnoi, S., & Maity, S. (2018). Calcined clay limestone cements (LC3). Cement and Concrete Research, 114, 49–56.
RMI. (2024). The Business Case for LC3. Rocky Mountain Institute.
European Commission. (2026). EU Emissions Trading System – Allowance Price Data and Free Allocation Phase-out Schedule. Brussels.
Holcim. (2025–2026). Scaling Calcined Clay for Sustainable Building – Corporate Updates on European and Latin American Capacity. Zurich: Holcim Ltd.
LC3 Project / EPFL. (2026). LC3 – A Guide to Best Practices for Scalable, Affordable and Sustainable Low-Carbon Building. Lausanne: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.
Business Today / Industry Reports. (2026). First Large-Scale LC3 Application at Noida International Airport, Jewar. New Delhi.
NITI Aayog / Industry Analyses. (2026). Roadmap and Baseline Performance Indicators for the Indian Cement Sector. New Delhi.
Springer / Innovative Infrastructure Solutions. (2026). LC3 Systems: A Review of Chemistry, Performance, Durability and Sustainability toward Market Adoption.
Cementir Holding / Industry Sources. (2025–2026). FUTURECEM and Related Low-Clinker Technologies in Europe.
Climate Risk Horizons & Independent Analyses. (2026). Assessment of Emission Intensity Targets under India’s CCTS for Cement and Other Hard-to-Abate Sectors.
GCCA / TERI. (Various years). Decarbonization Roadmaps for the Indian Cement Industry.
EN 197-5:2021. Cement – Part 5: Portland-composite cement CEM II/C-M and Composite cement CEM VI. European Committee for Standardization.

Concrete

More Oversight Makes Cement Plants Less Safe

Published

2 weeks ago

August 28, 2026

admin

Dijam Panigrahi makes a counterintuitive but data-backed argument that routing every sensor alert through human approval does not make cement plants safer.

India’s cement industry has spent the last two years wiring kilns, mills and coolers with sensors and automated control systems, and the safety case for doing so is strong on paper. Contract workers still make up the majority of the industry’s workforce, and fatal accidents remain a recurring problem. The Indian National Cement Workers Federation has noted that around 83 per cent of workers in the sector hold precarious positions, a fact that resurfaced after an oxygen cylinder explosion killed three contract workers at a plant in Chhattisgarh.
Industry tallies compiled by IndustriALL found cement plants recorded at least seventeen accidents in one year with 21 workers killed, and ten accidents the following year with nine killed, most of them contract staff. Automated monitoring, in theory, closes that gap. A sensor never gets complacent and never skips a check because a shift is short staffed.
However, plants that respond by routing every anomaly reading to a person for approval are quietly building a system that fails the same way understaffing does. When operators receive dozens of flagged deviations a shift, most of them minor, they learn a simple lesson: the fastest way through the queue is to approve without reading closely. The safety benefit disappears, not because the technology failed, but because the humans supervising it adapted to the volume.

Why alerts get ignored
A study cited by manufacturing technology publisher Applied SmartFactory found more than 95 per cent of alarms in a semiconductor fab were low priority, and only about 4 per cent ever triggered an action, with just 100 out of 5,000 alarms accounting for 70 per cent of all alarm activity. The mechanism is the same whether the trigger is a vibration sensor or an AI model flagging a kiln temperature swing. Once the ratio of noise to signal crosses a threshold, workers stop treating the system as a decision aid and start treating it as a formality to clear.
The scale of AI deployment underway makes this more than a theoretical risk. Stanford’s 2026 AI Index Report found organisational adoption of AI has reached 88 per cent, even as documented AI incidents rose to 362 in 2025, up sharply from 233 the year before, according to analysis of the report. The Index also found only about a third of organisations have adopted a formal governance framework, with NIST’s AI Risk Management Framework cited by 33 per cent and ISO/IEC 42001 cited by 36 per cent.
Most manufacturers are deploying monitoring systems faster than they are building the judgment for when a flagged event actually needs a person’s attention. In India, plants run by JK Cement have begun pairing CCTV feeds with AI to define safe zones around heavy machinery, a promising direction that still depends on operators trusting and reading the alerts the system generates.

A three-tier model for cement plant
The fix is not less monitoring or more monitoring. It is classifying decisions by risk and by novelty, rather than treating human oversight as a single switch that is either on or off. A workable model sorts factory floor events into three tiers.
The first tier, proceed, covers deviations the plant has seen before that fall within known safe bounds, such as a kiln feed rate adjustment within an established range. These should run without a stop for approval, because routing them to a person only trains that person to click through.
The second tier, pause, covers events that are unusual but not yet dangerous, such as a vibration reading trending toward a limit or a fuel blend shifting outside its typical mix. These warrant a brief human check before the system proceeds, giving an operator the chance to apply judgment the model does not yet have.
The third tier, escalate, covers events that are both high risk and unfamiliar, such as a pressure reading combined with a temperature spike that has no close precedent in the plant’s history. These should stop the process entirely and require a decision from someone with the authority to shut down a line.

Who should set the threshold
Where these tiers get drawn matters as much as the framework itself. Threshold setting is frequently handed to the vendor supplying the monitoring software or to a plant’s IT department, both of which understand the technology but not the specific tolerances of a given kiln, mill or line. Operations staff, who know that a particular grinding unit runs hotter under monsoon humidity or that a calciner behaves differently after a refractory reline, are better positioned to calibrate what counts as routine on their own equipment.
Handing threshold ownership to operations does not remove IT or vendors from the process, but it puts the calibration decision closest to the people who live with its consequences on the floor.

Signals that oversight is actually working
A few concrete indicators reveal whether a monitoring setup is functioning as intended or simply providing the appearance of safety. The escalation rate over time is the first: a rate that stays flat or climbs slowly as operations mature is healthy, while one that spikes and then falls sharply often means operators have started overriding the system rather than engaging with it. Time to resolution is the second: escalations that take progressively longer to close suggest fatigue or confusion about ownership, not diligence. The third, and most telling, is how accurate the system’s own uncertainty estimates turn out to be, meaning whether events flagged as high risk actually correlated with real incidents, and whether events waved through stayed incident free. A system whose escalations do not track with actual outcomes trains operators toward the same complacency that unmonitored equipment produces.
None of this argues against automation in Indian cement manufacturing, where a labor structure built on contract work and a track record of serious accidents make better monitoring an urgent need. It argues for treating human oversight as a design problem with three distinct settings, rather than a single
dial turned up whenever a plant wants to look safer on paper.

About the author:
Dijam Panigrahi, Co-founder and COO, GridRaster, is a spatial computing platform for industrial enterprises and manufacturers.