BIS breather for cement companies

Industry At A Glance

• Cement is among 8 core industries
• The 8 core industries comprise 40.27% of IIP
• Installed capacity is 600 MT
• Production is 391 MT in FY23
• Indian cement industry is 2nd largest in world

In a bid to improve the ease of doing business (EoDB), the central government has decided to give ad-hoc permission to companies for the manufacture and sale of cement without the ISI mark for a period up to 150 days or till the plant gets certification from the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), whichever is earlier.

Registration with Cement Information System (CIS) portal, however, will be a pre-requisite for the grant of ad-hoc permission, official sources told Bizz Buzz, adding that the CIS portal is being revised.

The modified CIS portal will be launched shortly. For updating the CIS portal, the National Council for Cement and Building Materials (NCCBM) will soon have dialogue with the representatives of the cement industry.

The government is focusing on the cement production data, which is collected by the Department for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade (DPIIT) through the CIS portal. However, there are some plants, which are not providing data regularly.

In a recent interaction with the industry representatives, officials requested them to ensure full coverage and regular submission of production data. They told the industry representatives that cement production data is used by the government for policy decisions and for calculating the IIP.

Cement is among the eight core industries in India. The eight core industries comprise 40.27 per cent of the weight of items in the index of industrial production or IIP.

With installed capacity of 600 million tonnes (MT) and production of 391 million tonnes (MT) of cement in 2022-23, the Indian cement industry is second largest in the world. The cement industry has assured the DPIIT that the production data will be provided regularly. They agreed that the accurate and authentic production data of the cement industry will be beneficial for all. They promised that the remaining plants will be onboarded on the CIS portal by the end of next fiscal.