Sattur

Forty years when the State Government took over a cement plant in Alangulam, now under Sattur Assembly constituency, with an eye on exploiting the limestone resource available in abundance in the region and providing employment to the local people.

However, over the last decade and a half, the unit has seen a slide both in terms of quantity of production and drastic reduction in the number of workers.

And, the saddest part of it is that the only public sector unit that is functional in the entire Virudhunagar district has failed to draw the attention of any political parties even amidst a closely fought by-election.

The factory had at least 1,700 employees in its pay rolls and the production was as much as 2,000 tonnes a day. “But now, there are only 80 regular employees and some 150 employees on contract basis,” says retired employee, K. Mookiah.

The other PSU was the cooperative spinning mills at Srivilliputtur that was rendered dysfunctional some 10 years ago.

“Former Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa promised to modernise the TANCEM unit at a cost of ₹210 crore in 2005. But, nothing has happened in the last decade,” he complains.

Mr. Mookaiah, a functionary of Hindu Mazdoor Sangh, says that the unit has a rich resource in the form of limestone that could last as long as 50 years.

“TANCEM Alangulam unit has some 3,500 acres of land to mine limestone for the next 50 years. But, it has been deliberately made a sick unit with an ulterior motive,” he says.

With the out-dated wet process production unit, no efforts has been taken to modernise it to bring down the production cost. No other cement unit in the country has this wet-process unit. Every other unit has switched over to dry process.

“Dry process helps in lower production cost,” he added.

At present, the unit is involved in producing cement by bringing clinker for its Ariyalur unit. “This involves higher cost on transportation,” said an employee.

Despite a wornout production unit and higher transport charges, TANCEM sells cement at a price lower price of ₹305 a bag even as private manufacturers sell it at around ₹400 a bag.

“If the unit is modernised, the price of cement can still be brought down further to ₹ 275 a bag with lower production cost. Besides giving employment to hundreds of people, this unit will help the common man a lot with its cheaper cement,” he said.

Even transporting limestone under its control from Virudhunagar district to Ariyalur plant will increase production cost.