UltraTech Cement gets EAC clearance to set up a facility in Tamil Nadu

The cost of setting up will be Rs 2,500 cr

UltraTech Cement Limited is planning to set up a cement plant with 5.5 Million Metric Tonnes Per Annum (MMTPA) cement and a 75 mega watt (MW) captive power plant, with an investment of Rs 2,500 crore. The company has received approval from Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC), under the Ministry of Environment, for the proposed facility.

While an email sent to the company's corporate communication head did not elicit any response, the Environment Ministry's clearance order showed that the proposed Cement plant will have a total capacity to produce 5.5 MTPA Cement and 4.5 MTPA Clinker along with captive power plant with a capacity of 75 MW.

The plant is coming at Villages in Karur and Dindigul districts and will spread across 136.23 ha, including private land – 119.44 ha and Government land – 16.79 ha.

Of the total project cost of Rs 2,500 crore, includes Rs 210 crore and Rs 10.5 crore is earmarked for the capital cost and recurring cost per annum towards the environmental pollution control measures. Rs 125 crore is earmarked towards the Enterprise Social Commitment based on Public Hearing issues over a period of ten years and Rs 29.98 crore is earmarked for the implementation of reclamation and rehabilitation (R&R) plan, said in the EOA's clearance document.

The cement plant will be based on the dry process technology for cement manufacturing with pre-heater and pre-calciner technology and the coal requirement for the project will be met by importing it from Indonesia and South Africa, as an interim basis. Petcoke will be procured from Reliance Industries Limited, Jamnagar.

The proposed requirement of limestone (6.70 MTPA), laterite/bauxite (0.46 MTPA), coal for cement plant (0.60 MTPA), coal for CPP (1.20 MTPA) gypsum (0.10 MTPA), fly ash (0.33 MTPA) and petcoke (0.525 MTPA) are the raw materials that will be used. The limestone will be sourced from mine of Grasim Industries Limited located at Thennilai village, Kadavur taluk of Karur district, said in the document.

As far as power plant concerned, total Power requirement is 60 kwh/tonne of clinker production and 35 kwh/ tonne of cement production which will be sourced from Captive Power Plant (75 MW) and Waste Heat Recovery Boiler (WHRB) (15 MW) & D.G. Set (3×6 MW, for emergency backup).