The Exclusive Interview Highlights with Mr. Jigar Patel given to CONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGY TODAY
While the presence of Ready-Mixed Concrete (RMC) in India has been growing steadily over the past few years, it only accounts for about 9% of cement consumption compared to other developed countries wherein nearly 80 per cent of cement consumption is in the form of RMC.
What is the reason?
Ready mixed concrete in India is now being popular in the market but if we talk about tier 2 and tier 3 cities still the concrete works at residential projects and in private commercial projects being done with the help of manual mixers so this is the main reason for lower demand of the RMC in these areas, more to this still the end users have to be educated about the quality of RMC and benefits of the same compared to traditional way of making concrete at site, so as per our opinion these are the main reason due to which the RMC sector is not able to achieve higher growth rate.
The overall demand for RMC is going to go up (it is projected to be 14% by 2017-18 ) due to housing segment followed by infrastructure, smart cities, increasing connectivity through metros, monorails and road networks.
What segment is your company's present focus?
We are focusing on requirement of the smaller construction projects where medium and small size mobile type concrete batching plants are highly suitable so recently we have launched advanced technology based smaller size batching plants to meet requirement of this segment, Our Eco series ranging from 15 CuM to 36 CuM/hr with pan type mixers and with Touch screen user interface and PLC based panel will do the job, Apart from this we are receiving a good demand for RMC projects from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and for the said market we came up with our VI ST and CP series of modern era concrete batching plants where we are offering batching plants starting from 20 CuM to 120 CuM/hr with Pan/ planetary/ Twin shaft mixer and we are also offering SCADA software with computer interface for inventory management at site and turnkey solutions for such clients like onsite supports, round the clock service back up and customization in products to meet specific requirement of particular segment.
Let us know about your range of concrete related products and their automation?
We are having wide range of concrete mixing plants like Our CCP series which are mobile type concrete batching plants starting from 20 CuM to 45 CuM/hr, Our CP series where we offer static concrete batching plants starting from 20 CuM to 60 CuM/hr, VI ST series which is horizontal type concrete batching plants having IN line feeders for more storage of aggregates where we have 20 CuM to 120 CuM/hr, for smaller segment we are having our Eco series ultra smart mobile batching plants with pan mixer starting from 15 CuM to 36 CuM/hr, we also have reversible concrete mixers in various capacity like VI 800 , VI 1050 and VI 1400 both in electrical and Diesel engine versions, We also provide solution for concrete laying for CC roads as well as for canal lining where we have two different varieties of concrete pavers namely Concrete Screed pavers as well as Concrete Fix foam Paver finishers, Even we provide storage solutions for cement, fly ash, GGBS where we have vertical as well as horizontal storage silos ranging from 40 MT to 200 MT which can be installed in any of the models of our company, all the concrete batching plants are equipped with modern era HMI and PLC based control panel and we offer option of SCADA connectivity if client demands.
What are the threats faced by the RMC Industry in India?
Recently if we talk about the threats for the RMC industry are lack of awareness about the benefits of RMC, cost factor, government taxation policy, availability of sand in certain region as it is the main ingredient of RMC, stable demand from the market and payment terms of the market for RMC