Economy & Market

The Sad Story of the Stimulus

Published

6 years ago

January 6, 2020

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The shock is enormous, the people are left stunned, and the economy is reeling. Clearly, the The shock is enormous, the people are left stunned, and the economy is reeling. Clearly, the pandemic is taking an unprecedented toll on our bodies and minds. is taking an unprecedented toll on our bodies and minds. But there is this foreboding that something more disastrous is looming on the horizon. This apprehension is gaining ground from the ever declining GDP growth projections for the year 2020-21; In March, experts were talking about a 2 per cent growth for FY21, in April it became 0 per cent, in May it went down to -2 per cent, and today in early June, the forecast has plummeted to -5 per cent, with some naysayers pegging it at -10 per cent. While none of these numbers shock us any more, there are two major points to be remembered in this context.

Firstly, this recession is definitely going to hit India more than other countries, because we are entering this Covid-infested recession with two years of slowdown already having wounded our economy severely. This is aptly described as "We were already hurtling downhill, but now we are going to be thrown over the cliff".

And may be that is why even a projected -10 per cent decline in GDP does not shock us anymore. But we are in awe of what this means for the future. We are scared because we try to figure out the implications even as we have no past experience, nor any notion of what this may mean to our citizens and our existence. Understandably, this has not happened before, in our lifetime, and we have no precedents to fall back on. But the bottom line is clearly that India will be one of the worst hit nations in the aftermath of this war with the virus, and with its coffers already weakened by successive years of stretched finances, India’s ability to claw out of this economic hole may be seriously impaired.

The second point to note is more profound and definite, and this has to do with our battle with poverty. I heard it said somewhere that pushing for economic growth is our moral obligation to the poor. Every 1 per cent additional growth of GDP per capita is said to lift three million people out of poverty and unfortunately the reverse is also true. As it is, the drooping growth of the last two years have been a great lost opportunity for us to improve the lot of lots of our underprivileged fellow countrymen. But that misfortune now looks like small change when we consider the deep impact of a 10 to 15 per cent swing of GDP growth number. Such an economic calamity will push at least 30 million people back into poverty, and take us backwards many years in our long and arduous developmental journey.

Like governments around the world, India has also announced a flurry of "stimulus" measures totalling up to an apparently massive 20 lakh crore package, purportedly hitting the golden mark of 10 per cent of our GDP. However, independent observers have analysed this to be really between 1.3 to 1.9 lakh crore only, the rest being deferments and credit lines, etc. The package has also been criticised for being silent about creating demand, which was the need of the hour. Given this background, it is now projected that recovery of our economy has to wait at least till next calendar year.

The cement industry was already impacted by the general economic slowdown in the economy. We noted that the production of cement in FY19 has shown a degrowth of 0.8 per cent already against a 13 per cent growth in the year before. And now with the Covid-19 pandemic, and what with the fact that the stimulus package has not done much to excite consumption, cement production is expected to decline by 25 to 30 per cent during FY21 and capacity utilisation is expected to be only about 45 per cent. If this does happen, this will be one of the steepest ever fall in capacity utilisation and production that the industry would have ever experienced.

Economy & Market

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

Published

4 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.