Birla Corporation Limited, the flagship company of the M P Birla Group is set to increase its cement capacity to 15 million tonne per annum by 2015. Tarachand Jain, Senior Joint President (Marketing), of the company said, "We are looking for limestones and mines very actively. We have applied to various states in the northern and central region. We are waiting for clearances as soon as we get them we will go ahead with the plans. We are mainly looking at Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

"The company is predominant in the eastern, northern and the central belt and wants to increase its presence in this region. As part of this expansion strategy, in the first phase the company is all set to increase its capacity to 9 million tonne per annum by the end of March 2012 from its present 6.46 million tonne per annum.The company at present has seven units spread across Chanderi, Satna, Durgapur and Rae Barelli. After the capacity addition the Chanderi plant will be operational from December end, Durgapur facility will be functional from the first week of December and Satna will start trail production from February next year.

Jain adds, "At present we have close to 6.5 million tonne capacity which we are increasing to 9 million tonne by March 2012. Most of the capacity expansion is happening through brownfield expansion. We are adding one green field capacity in Chanderi. In Assam too we have a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Assam Mineral Development Corporation (AMDC) to set up a 1.2 million tonne unit."