What were the reasons for the fall in cement consumption in South India in the first quarter of the current financial year?
In the first quarter, all-India growth was only 3 per cent, compared with last year’s 5 per cent. In this background, in Andhra Pradesh, there was a decline of 14 per cent, in Tamil Nadu a decline of 13 per cent, in Karnataka a decline of 6 per cent, and in Kerala a decline of 7 per cent. I don’t have statistics on which sector consumes what quantity of cement. What people say is infrastructure development has come down. Government spending is not as much as before in all states. In Tamil Nadu, there was water shortage. Karnataka had positive growth of over 15 per cent in the past three-four years. Strangely, this time it is negative. Whatever spending took place might have happened in the last four years, with maybe a little lull in the current year. In Andhra Pradesh with a change in government, investment may have slowed down. That is my feeling. Generally in the South, doesn’t the biggest demand come from the government? Not necessarily. It’s mostly from the housing sector. What is
