July 25, 2008

India may allow more cement import from Pakistan

ET reported that Pakistan has turned out to be an unusual ally in India’s fight against inflation. The two governments are working on ways to enable greater supply of cement from Pakistan by removing infrastructure and procedural constraints at the Wagah Attari border.

Indian Railways is in talks with Pakistan Railways to allow 4 rakes to transport cement instead of the existing one. Additionally, India has decided to allow Pakistani trucks carrying cement to cross into Amritsar for unloading.

The move is expected to increase total cement imports from Pakistan to 600,000 tonnes by end of June 2008 as compared to 300,000 tonnes imported in the last 6 months. This will not just address India’s problem of supply constraint for cement but will also help in checking price rise.

A union government official said that "Supplies from Pakistan so far has been 300,000 tonne over the past 6 months since India allowed import of cement from Pakistan. The amount of import will at least double by end of June 2008."

Talks are also on to put in place a conveyor belt at the border on which cement can be loaded from Pakistan’s side, pass through an x ray machine attached on the Indian side, and then unloaded. This would save the authorities the hassle of unloading sacks one at a time from trucks and screening them individually.

Although, under pressure from the government, some companies have reduced prices marginally this week, prices are still high. New capacities are also being created by the domestic industry to bridge the supply gap, but it would not make a substantial difference immediately.