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Tribune News Service
Ambika Sharma
Solan, January 9
Transporters today rebutted the claim of the Adani group management that higher freight charges led to high cement prices in Darlaghat. They said raw material was available locally and it involved no transportation cost.
The Ambuja Cements Limited plant at Darlaghat has two conveyor belts of about 6-km length that carry raw material (limestone, shale etc.) from the mining area to the plant site at Darlaghat.
Raw material available locally
The cement manufactured at Darlaghat plant using locally available raw material should be cheaper here as no transportation cost in incurred on transporting the raw material. —Jagdish Thakur, Core committee member
“The cement manufactured at Darlaghat using locally available raw material should be cheaper here as no transportation cost in incurred in transporting the raw material,” according to Jagdish Thakur, member of the core committee formed to resolve the dispute pertaining to higher freight charges.
The Adani management closed Ambuja Cements Limited (ACL) at Darlaghat in Solan and ACC plant in Bilaspur on December 15 after the transporters didn’t accept lower freight rate of Rs 6 per tonne per km.
“The freight rate was not only as per the formula devised by the state government, but it also took into account cost of various commodities. It is surprising why the Adani management has suddenly found problem with this formula, though no hike has taken place since 2018,” Thakur added.
He said the transporters were also giving 40 per cent rebate on the backload carried by the company from other places. It was, therefore, incorrect to attribute the higher cement rate to merely freight charges. Subsidies worth crores have been availed by the plant management from time to time, including transport subsidy, central excise exemption, sales tax subsidy etc., and even land was acquired at much cheaper rate.
A section of transporters said, “Ups and downs in the market are a routine and it was unethical to shut down the plant unilaterally merely on the plea that they were incurring some losses.”
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