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HeidelbergCement
India Limited (MCL), a HeidelbergCement Group Company, was promoted in 1958 by a Karnataka based industrialist in technical and financial collaboration with Kaisers of USA as a Public Limited Company.
The
first one lac ton per annum dry process cement plant with an investment of Rs.220 lacs at Ammasandra Dist. Tumkur, Karnataka
was commissioned in 1962. Immediately thereafter, an expansion was planned which doubled MCL's capacity to 2 lac tpa in 1966 at an investment of Rs.170 lacs Kaisers subsequently took control of the Company. Late Shri.G.D. Birla became the Chairman of the Company in 1966 and under his stewardship, the Company again doubled its capacity from 2 lac tpa to 4 lac tpa in 1968 at an investment of Rs.390 lacs MCL made steady progress and
increased the capacity at Ammasandra to 6 Lac tpa with an investment of another Rs.230 lacs in 1978.
MCL, to expand, looked for a location in the North which, was then facing acute cement shortage.
Damoh in Madhya Pradesh was selected and a 5 lac tpa green-field cement plant was set up at an investment of Rs.2950
lacs, which commenced production in 1983. This was a
state of art first 5 stage preheater based technology plant in the Country which helped in maximising thermal efficiency. Encouraged with its success
MCL also modernised its Ammasandra unit at an investment of Rs.3600
lacs, which was successfully completed in January, 1989, and helped not only in increasing the efficiency but also reduced cost of production on account of savings in power and fuel consumption.
The Clinkerisation capacity at Damoh was further increased to 10 lac tpa by
installing another state of art 6 stage preheater Kiln at an investment of Rs.8000
lacs, which was commissioned in 1989, which helped not only in
improving the operational efficiency but also in reducing the coal consumption and
enhanced productivity.
A green field 5 lac tpa grinding unit was set up at Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh at an investment of Rs.5900
lacs, which commenced production in July 1989 to take
advantage of the available fly ash from the nearby located Paricha Thermal Power Plant.
Jhansi was considered an ideal location in view of the fact that Uttar Pradesh is one of the biggest cement consuming state with very little production capacity and even the available capacity then was only from the State Govt. owned cement plants.
With this MCL achieved a total capacity of over 20 lac in 1989-90, with a
presence both in Southern and Northern markets, which at that time only ACC enjoyed. Subsequently with upgradation and balancing at
Damoh, the capacity increased to 23 lac tpa in 2004-05.
Pursuant to the Share Subscription and Share Purchase Agreement and Escrow Agreement Cementrum I B.V.(subsidiary of HeidelbergCement AG) acquired Equity Shares from the S.K. Birla Group and its affiliates. In addition, further Equity Shares were acquired under the Open Offer giving Cementrum I B.V. 54.89% shareholding in
HeidelbergCement India Limited. |
