Loud Thinking May 12, 2014 at 10:24AM

An eye opening letter published today by the daily “Dawn”.

Ministry of Industries & Production, Finance and the FBR must wake up to stop this loot & plunder by the cement manufacturers.

Cement bag price rise

From the Newspaper
Updated about 2 hours ago

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THIS refers to the report by Aamir Shafaat Khan (May 4) about price raise in cement bags by cement manufacturers for which I will take readers back to 1998/99 when the price of a cement bag was Rs140. It was the period when all cement plants were using furnace oil to run their systems.

But when Gen Musharraf’s era started, all manufacturers started converting their cement-manufacturing plants from furnace oil to coal. The reason being that the cost of coal was one-fourth that of furnace oil. All of a sudden, the price of cement was increased from Rs140 to Rs240 per bag. Surprisingly, there was no protest whatsoever!

The rise in the price of cement from time to time is most unjustifiable, as there is no raw material (imported/local) used in its manufacturing.

The fuel bill after conversion from furnace oil to coal is reduced from 100pc to 25pc and the coal which is burnt during the process along with its ash, amounting to 15pc of the coal burnt, is also mixed in the cement.

One ton of furnace oil costs manufacturers Rs80,000 whereas two tons of coal costs between Rs26,000 and Rs28,000.

Is there any authority to counter these elements?

Mobin Niazi
Karachi

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