Displaying items by tag: Saifco Cements

India: JK Cement has entered a joint venture with Saifco Cement, through which it will expand its offering in northern India. JK Cement will acquire a 60% stake in Saifco Cement for US$20.1m to expand in Jammu and Kashmir, where Saifco owns limestone reserves of 129Mt across 144 hectares. The acquisition will involve both the companies working together to increase the capacity of cement production by leveraging the expanse of the limestone reserves in the next five years, according to a press release.

JK Cement CEO Madhav Singhania said "Cement demand typically leads economic expansion by a factor of 1.2 in regions with significant infrastructural development opportunities, and Kashmir is undoubtedly one of these regions."

India: Several cement producers in Jammu and Kashmir are operating quarries and plants in the vicinity of Dachigam National Park without the mandatory no-objection certification (NOC) from the union territory’s Forest Department. The Deccan Herald newspaper named JK Cement, TCI Cement, Khyber Industries and Green Land Cement as companies that have as yet failed to apply for NOCs for plants in the area. The newspaper alleged political interference in favour of cement producers, publishing state government internal correspondence that gave the distances of Khyber Industries, TCI Cements, Saifco Cements, Dawar Cement, HK Cement and Cemtac Cements plants from the national park as 2.5km, 6.0 km, 3.0km, 6.0 km, 5.0km and 6.0km respectively. According to the source, the true distances are 2.2km, 3.4km, 2.3km, 3.6km, 4.0km and 4.9km and this is part of the state’s support for illegal cement production which constitutes a ‘politician-bureaucrat-cement mafia nexus’ which has enabled private companies to ‘flout norms with impunity.’