'All the roads in the country will be converted into cement-concrete ones, to ensure their stability and durability'. Well, if that sounds like music to the ears of the cement industry, the musician is none other than our Minister of Road Transport, Highways and Shipping, Nitin Gadkari.

According to news reports, UltraTech Cement's Rs 16,189 crore acquisition of the cement business of Jaiprakash Associates may be 'completed soon', according a top executive in the know of the situation.

The domestic cement industry has a long way to go to improve the country's low per capita consumption, a senior official has said. Joint Secretary in the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Ravneet Kaur also said that the government would “support the cement industry to facilitate usage of alternate fuels and raw materials (AFR). “(The) Indian cement industry, currently producing 7 per cent of the global cement requirement, has a long way to go to improve (as) the country’s per capita consumption (is) at a dismal low,” an official statement quoted Kaur as saying.

The domestic cement industry has a long way to go to improve the country's low per capita consumption, a senior official has said.

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has decided to form a multi-disciplinary committee to examine the possibility of building cement plants near to power plants to use fly ash.

Since April 2015, average prices fetched by Coal India from local auctions started to fall and in the subsequent 12 months, prices have dipped by about 39 per cent from Rs 2,184 per tonne in the quarter ended June 2015 to Rs 1,337 per tonne during the quarter ended September 2016.

Though the industry as a whole has been able to bear the brunt of demonetisation, the quarter was impacted by uncertainty and higher input prices, and most players may report volume decline and flat realisations. We take a look at the performance of a few key players and analyst predictions on the road ahead.

In a quarter plagued by uncertainty owing to currency demonetisation, Kotak expects mixed results from the cement sector — pan-India players are likely to report volume decline and flat realisations, players in the North will report weakness in volumes with sequential drop in realisations, and South-based players will report healthy volume growth coupled with sequential improvement in realisations.

Industry veterans, head honchos, thought leaders, policymakers and market analysts were all present under one roof for the second edition of the Indian Cement Review Awards 2016. They cheered the achievements of their peers and came away with actionable ideas that will surely transform the cement industry in the times to come.