Shri Ajay Shankar, Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, has stated that the record of Indian cement industry in technology adoption and modernization is remarkable. Speaking at the inaugural session of the 10th NCB International Seminar on Cement and Building Materials, organized by the National Council for Cement and Building Materials (NCB), here today, Shri Ajay Shankar complimented the cement industry for making full use of the liberalized policy and observed that besides achieving an increase in the entire domestic demand, the export of 9 million tonnes of cement is an outstanding achievement. This has helped India in becoming the second largest producer of cement in the world after China, he added. "The industry needs to further concentrate on modernization and upgradation of technology, optimization of operations and increased application of automation and information technology. This will help to reduce the cost of production through saving of energy and enhancement of productivity and to create clean environment by reducing the emission levels", the Secretary further added.
Elaborating on the role of government in this regards, Shri Ajay Shankar informed that government’s efforts have been to encourage and help the industry in enhancing the level of consumption of cement by concentrating its efforts on thrust areas like faster implementation of infrastructure and irrigation projects, pushing housing development programmes, promotion of concrete highways and other roads, particularly concrete roads in rural areas. He said the potential of other emerging building materials and technologies such as high performance concrete, self compacting concrete, fibre reinforced concrete, blended cements should be fully exploited in the construction industry, particularly in view of the massive infrastructure development envisaged in the immediate future in our country. He also observed that this kind of seminar helps to take stock of technological status of plant and devise strategies for further development and for better competitiveness at national and global level.
About 700 delegates from across the world are participating in the four-day  Seminar. On this occasion, Shri Ajay Shankar released a special publication titled "Sustainable Development of Indian Cement Industry and Infrastructure – Challenges".
In his keynote address, Shri M. Vasudeva, Director General, NCB, said that the cement industry is widely acknowledged as one of the six pillars on which the nation's economy rests and during the last two decades, the Indian cement industry witnessed a three-fold growth and today is the second largest producer of cement in the world. About the environment development, he said that the Indian cement industry has implemented comprehensive measures towards environmental improvement. The notable among them are: state-of-the-art dust collection systems, extensive tree plantation around the plants and mines and reclamation of abandoned mines.
In his presidential address, Shri Manoj Gaur, Chairman of NCB, has said that cement, the world over, is the most vastly consumed man-made construction material. In fact, the quantum of production and utilization of cement and other building materials is an important indicator of a country's economic well being. Indian cement industry has come a long way with present capacity rising to 177 million tonnes from the modest beginning in 1914 when the first cement plant was commissioned with a production capacity of 1000 tonnes per annum. Substantial technological improvements have been brought about and today, the industry can legitimately be proud of its state-of-the-art technology and processes incorporated in most of its cement plants. The industry has achieved spectacular results in terms of energy conservation and environmental improvement.