JSW Cement inaugurates a 6.5 km railway siding to cater to cargo demand

KOLKATA: JSW Cement has inaugurated a 6.5 km railway siding to cater to incoming and outgoing cargo of 2.4 million tonne per annum (MTPA) cement manufacturing unit at Salboni in West Bengal. The railway siding will connect the manufacturing unit to the main railway line between Godapiasal and Salboni. This will help JSW Cement in being cost effective since logistics accounts for nearly 35% of costs in the cement business.

The rail yard inside the plant has five lines running parallel and connected to each other. Out of the five lines two are dedicated for unloading and connected with wagon tippler for mechanized unloading within five hours, another two lines are kept for loading of cement onto the wagon in a mechanized manner within seven hours and the fifth line is for engine reversal. The siding is designed to handle incoming and outgoing cargo simultaneously and the plan is to handle two rakes a day for incoming raw material and one rake per day for outward dispatch.

"In cement business, logistics accounts for 30-35% of the cement cost and to be cost effective we are continuously working on various levers to reduce this cost. This railway siding is a step in this direction," Parth Jindal, Managing Director, JSW Cement said. Access to markets in east would be economically feasible and similarly, for inbound raw material, the railway siding will improve the availability of raw material at the plant and will also help to drastically reduce our landed cost, he added.