Junagadh City District Wildlife Forest Department News Gujarat India

Gujarat State Forest department bags national environment award.

The state Forest department has bagged the Indira Priyadarshini Vrikshamitra Award for 2006, 2007 and 2008 for outstanding performance in social forestry and reclamation of wastelands in Gujarat. The Award has been constituted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests.

The department’s Junagadh range has won the award in the social forestry category, while B B Limbasiya of the Rajkot office has won the same in the individual category.

Principal Chief Conservator of Forest Pradeep Khanna said on Monday that the social forestry range office at Anand has bagged the award for its outstanding work in mangrove plantation along the Gulf of Cambay, covering over 4,000 hectares of coastal land.

“Earlier, this coastal area did not have any vegetation worth the name. Under the project, we have not only planted Avicinia marina in 4,000 hectares of land but also generated over 90,000 mandays in the last three years,” Khanna said.

He added, “Due to the mangrove plantation, the villagers in Tada Talav, who were getting just 60-150 kg of sea food catch per day, are now getting 400 kg.”

Junagadh District News - Binani Cement Sutrapada

Binani Cement to increase capacity.

Project Monitor quoted Mr Vinod Juneja MD of Binani Cement as saying that Binani Cement Ltd will ramp up capacity from 6.5 million tonne per annum currently to 15 million tonne per annum by 2011.

Mr Juneja said that “Even in the current situation, the demand for cement is estimated to be 200 million tonne per annum while the total capacity of all manufacturers put together is 180 million tonne per annum and so there is enormous scope to grow.”

Mr Juneja said that “Within a span of 10 years, the capacity was raised to 6 million tonne per annum which was complemented by the installation of two additional power plants. It is all set to achieve power capability of 69.6 MW that should make it 100% self sufficient in power.”

Currently,Binani has 5.3 million tonne per annum fully integrated cement plant at Binanigram in Sirohi district of Rajasthan, with its captive limestone mines, abundant reserves of limestone and captive power plant, and subsidiaries in Dubai and China.

A 1.5 million tone per annum split grinding unit commissioned recently at Neem Ka Thana in Sikar district of the state has further increased capacity.

Recently, it signed a MoU with the Gujarat government for setting up a Greenfield cement plant.According to a company statement, the new 2.5 million tonne per annum plant is proposed to be established in Lodhva village at Sutrapada in Junagadh district.

Over the years,Binani Cement has gone beyond Indian shores.Binani Cement Factory LLC, a subsidiary operating in Dubai for the past 10 years, has a capacity of 1.2 million tonne per annum and plans for its expansion to 2 million tonne per annum in near future are already in place.

Another subsidiary, Shandong Binani Rongan Cement Company Ltd in China, got rolling just over a year ago, but already operates at close to 100% capacity.It is confident of ramping up capacity to 3 million tonne per annum with an investment of USD 100 million.