Mancherial Cement Company faces shutdown

Mancherial Cement Company (MCC), one of South India’s oldest cement manufacturers, is facing imminent closure due to operational losses and mounting debts, threatening to end its industrial legacy

Mancherial: The Mancherial Cement Company (MCC), formerly known as Associated Cement Companies (ACC), one of the oldest cement manufacturers in south India, is on the verge of closure due to operational losses and many other challenges.

The plant was established on a sprawling 350 acres of land abutting the Hyderabad-Nagpur highway in the district headquarters, using advanced German technology in 1958, with an installation capacity of 1,000 metric tonnes per day.

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However, it is on the brink of a shutdown following the mounting burden of debts caused by the operational losses. Cessation of the company will end a chapter of glorious industrial history of the district.

“The management owes around Rs.100 crore including interest to a nationalised bank which is trying to auction the properties of the cement manufacturer every month. However, none is showing interest to take part in the auction as the bank fixed the base cost of the plant at Rs 380 crore,” an official of the company told ‘Telangana Today’.

Currently, a handful of managerial staffers are working with the cement manufacturer, indicating its bleak situation.

The staffers are not paid salaries regularly. All the workers were removed using the Retrenchment Act. The workers staged protests and approached courts, but in vain.

They alleged that the management vehemently flouted various labour laws.

Properties attached

Various banks that lent huge loans to the MCC issued notices to the existing management attaching property for failing to repay loans. However, the management is struggling to clear its growing debts as it stopped production a few years back.

It recently replaced Electrostatic precipitators (ESP) of the plant with modern equipment to meet the norms of the State Pollution Control Board.

The cement manufacturer slipped into red in 2000. The then management sold the plant to a group of businessmen belonging to the town in 2006.

Reportedly, its performance further deteriorated following internal bickering among the promoters, who approached various courts and around 20 cases were pending against the management of MCC in legal institutions.

Produced quality cement

The MCC was one of the 18 cement units established by the ACC across the country, a conglomeration of cement companies that ruled the sector of the country for over five decades.

The plant once had over 1,000 employees. It earned the reputation of offering the highest salaries to employees in the country after the steel industry when it was making profits.

The MCC had produced the finest quality cement, used for the construction of not only homes, but several major irrigation projects such as Nagarjuna Sagar and Sri Ram Sagar Project in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh.

Its product special oil well cement was applied for building fuel wells in seas and oceans in several parts of India.