Economy & Market

Shifting gears from pandemic response to broader economy

Published

5 years ago

July 1, 2021

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The good news is that India has stopped the spread of the new variant of the Covid-19, which is running havoc in the UK and would continue to maintain strictest of guidelines to be followed in days to come. This is one way India will remain ahead and that is the best news at the start of the new year 2021.

The pandemic response by and large has been exceeding expectations, almost every State government has done well and the Centre doing its part, although it is still early to celebrate anything; the case rate and death rate both are better than what it was a month back, therefore the actions on the vaccine is what everyone is looking at and this would ordain somewhat of a Centre-State coordination we have never seen in the past. First of all the procurement of the vaccine is the starting point and India is largely going to depend on domestic sources, which is a great story. All three sources have to now produce and the capacities must be combined to reach a sizeable number so that in 2021 we can reach the target set by the experts for India.

The vaccine distribution, if it mirrors the same universal immunisation programmes, we will have to improve on many areas, cold storage systems, maintenance, expertise of people and logistics of temperature sensitive movements will be key things to watch out, much of which needs collaboration among a range of constituents, some state, some central and some falling in the private domain, digital solutions actually help to make this work seamlessly.

The gears now need to be shifted to the broader economy and consumption remains the most vulnerable area; increasing consumption has not been an easy task although fiscal actions have been incessantly moving in that direction, the fiscal gap itself is now Rs 10.75 lakh crore for the period April-November, which is not a great denouement if one looks at the year on year consumption de-growth of 5.6 per cent so far. The fiscal multipliers therefore have shown a much moderated stance so far. The major reason for this can be found in the application of funds, of the Rs 4,280 crore of borrowings per day by the Centre and States, Rs 1,940 crore per day go in interest payments to the banks; these interest payments could have been much more had the weighted average cost of borrowing been at 7.5 per cent instead of the currently subdued 5.87 per cent.

The falling rates have never helped to increase consumption over a protracted period of time. The money multipliers have not worked either and the transmission channels have never been deep enough to reach the most vulnerable areas. The resultant hypothesis remains strange but true that the fall in rates exactly and equally opposed the desire to take in more debt for consumption and the punishment on savers made them save more to compensate, thus making consumption growth even more difficult; the job market returned with some cheers which is not broad based and this is where the attention needs to be diverted to.

The next budget must be seriously looking at a broad based consumption growth. But for now there are areas of immediate actions, like the emergency funding of the health and vaccine disbursements, it is still not clear how this funding will be done. The vaccine costs (Rs 57,200 crore) is a fraction of the total cost for the 130 crore population. The additional logistics, storage and distribution costs will be closer to this number. The Centre or State, whichever way we look at it, it will strain borrowing outlay for 2021.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Procyon Mukherjee is an ex-Chief Procurement Officer at LafargeHolcim India.

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.