Economy & Market

Companies loosened their purse strings

Published

6 years ago

January 9, 2020

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Cement companies have pitched in with donations to PM and CM funds, besides directly helping the poor with health and hygiene, and relief materials.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which has altered lives and livelihoods drastically across the board, has hit its peak in August 2020, with the daily additions to positive cases registered over 75,000-mark, which is the highest single day infections in any country. In its wake, cement companies, which are part of several mandated CSR (corporate social responsibility) initiatives already, were in the forefront in loosening their purse strings in a big way.

After the first case of COVID-19 came to light in India on January 30, 2020, the Centre has imposed a nationwide social and economic lockdown beginning March 25 to check spread of virus, bringing manufacturing activity in the country to a halt, except for essential commodities, which has not been lifted in full even by August-end.

The COVID-19 turned explosive by infecting nearly two million people in a single month, taking the total number of infected cases to over 3.6 million by August-end. Of these, 2.83 million have recovered, while there are nearly 0.79 million active cases in the country. India’s number of active cases is second only to the United States, where the count stands at 2.56 million. The virus has taken a toll of 65,373 lives in India, the third highest in the world.

To start with, cement companies have taken measures to ensure highest degree of safety and health to the Company’s employees, by asking them to work from home since lockdown. Some companies like Dalmia Cement Bharat have instituted a pan-India workplace compliance audit too.

Commitment
Going much beyond the call of mandated CSR budgets, cement companies have committed funds to the Prime Minister and chief ministers’ relief funds, besides directly investing in isolation wards and their equipment, awareness campaigns, supply of safety materials, food and other essential supplies for the poor and labour without work, all in the vicinity of their offices/factories in the wake of lockdown.

"Firstly, we contributed Rs 25 crore to PM-CARES Fund to fight the pandemic. Apart from that, employee contributions (Rs 1.65 crore) and contributions from Dalmia Cement Bharat (totalling Rs 5 crore) to various state relief funds were made for combating the pandemic," says Vishal Bhardwaj, CEO, Dalmia Bharat Foundation.

Meanwhile, The Ramco Cements had contributed over Rs 11 crore for COVID-19 by way of donations to relief funds and direct provision of relief materials and activities.

Giving details of the contribution, AV Dharmakrishnan, CEO, Ramco Cements says that the company had contributed Rs 2.50 crore to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister’s Public Relief Fund, Rs 2.50 crore to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister’s Public Relief Fund and donation of Rs 3.42 crore worth of relief materials comprising of oxygen concentrators, thermal scanners, private protective equipment (PPE) kits, masks, gloves, sanitizers, etc., to Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha governments. The remaining funds were spent on providing amenities and relief material in areas located near their factories.

HeidelbergCement employees contributed a day’s salary, with an equal contribution from the company it was given into the PM-CARES and to state relief funds. "No sooner the lockdown was called off," Jamshed Naval Cooper, Managing Director, HeidelbergCement India says, "HeidelbergCement decided to contribute Re one for every bag of cement sold by it. The proceeds of which would fuel its initiative ?annam? under which food supplies would be provided to the under privileged section of the society." The lockdown was partially lifted from June 1, 2020.

JK Lakshmi Cement (JKLC) and Ambuja Cement Foundation (ACF) have diverted a part of their CSR resources to the urgent relief works in the wake of pandemic. Besides, ACF has also shifted their skill development programme and community meetings online immediately after lifting of COVID-19 related lockdown.

Health & hygiene
The cement industry responded to this unprecedented crisis by spreading awareness on the precautions to be taken to check the virus spread. ACF has launched interventions as per the WHO guidelines and the Ministry of Healthcare and provided temperature measuring meters at each block level health care centre for screening the suspected cases, in the initial phase of lockdown.

"Due to poor public health system especially in our geographies (plant and mining locations) there was a need to focus on educating and creating awareness amongst our beneficiaries. We had to ensure behavioural changes like social distancing, wearing mask, hand washing, etc., practised in our communities to curb the virus," says Pearl Tiwari, Director and CEO, ACF.

"A large number of food kits, sanitizers, cotton masks and hand wash were distributed to the needy families as well as sessions and meetings were organised to create awareness on COVID-19," says Vinita Singhania, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, JKLC. The company has also taken up several initiatives for local communities and migrant" workers in collaboration with local panchayats and district administration across its plant locations.

Ramco had also provided the required infrastructure to set up "isolation centres" for treating the patients infected with COVID-19 at Kadukur and Thamaraikulam in Tamil Nadu and near the company’s plant at Haridaspur in Odisha. The Company had also donated electrical accessories, steel cots, bed, pillows, awareness posters, flex boards etc., to government run isolation centres in Ariyalur and Viruthunagar districts in Tamil Nadu.

"As part of Covid-19 prevention activities, spraying of disinfectants has been done in and around our operational villages of Jaggayyapet Mandal, Jaggayyapet municipality area and Macherla towns in Andhre Pradesh, since March 28, 2020. Provisions (groceries) distributed to all residents of Muktyala village in April & May 2020,"says V Madhusudana Rao, Vice President – Operations (Cement Unit -II), The KCP.

Challenges
Due to movement restrictions in the wake of COVID-19, CSR activities were affected in several geographies. "The COVID-19 fear has put restrictions on our community level CSR workers mobility in and out of the villages/areas. COVID-19 has resulted into "economic worsening" of, particularly of, poor and marginalised families who were living either below or marginally above the poverty line," says Singhania. This has also resulted in pushing up cost of CSR activities of companies.

– BS SRINIVASALU REDDY

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.