Bharathi Cement, Concor join hands for rail-cum-road bulk transportation

The cement maker plans to serve its key markets of Chennai, South West Tamil Nadu and Kerala from its Kadapa plant in Andhra Pradesh through this initiative

Vicat Group, a French cement multinational with Bharathi Cement as its flagship brand, and Container Corporation of India (Concor) have started a first-of-its-kind model for bulk cement transportation by rail in customised tank containers and box containers with liners.

Bharathi Cement plans to serve its key markets of  Chennai, South West Tamil Nadu  and Kerala from its Kadapa plant in Andhra Pradesh through this new rail-cum-road mode of transportation. “At present, 90 rail-cum-road wagons were imported by us and are in the process of importing 410 more under the scheme,” said M Ravinder Reddy, director of the company. A total of Rs 150 crore will be invested, which includes a terminal at Coimbatore.

Vicat Group has been operating in India for the past 12 years with a total 8.6 MTPA capacity in India. As a part of this model, Bharathi Cement would be moving bulk cement through standard 20 feet tank containers from its Kadapa Plant to Coimbatore on rakes supplied by CONCOR. Bharathi Cement is building a dedicated packaging terminal at Coimbatore to serve bagged and bulk cement to its key markets of Kerala and South West Tamilnadu.

Anoop Kumar Saxena, chief executive officer of Vicat Group stated that this model would help Bharathi Cement to reduce its logistics cost , carbon emission and will improve the service level for its customers.