Calcutta: Nuvoco Vistas Corporation Limited, earlier known as Lafarge India, is eyeing a 5-10 per cent rise in the contribution of specialised cement to its product basket over the next two years.

Value-added products and cost cuts across its plants are expected to benefit the company's topline.

FMCG firm Nirma had bought a 100 per cent stake in Lafarge India from LafargeHolcim in 2016, including both the cement and concrete businesses, for an enterprise value of Rs 9,000 crore.

The company was renamed Nuvoco Vistas and is undergoing both cost reduction and brand transition exercises, with a focus on expanding its value-added offerings.

The firm had earned a revenue and net profit of Rs 5,832.46 crore and Rs 165.67 crore, respectively, in 2016-17.

"At present, around 50 per cent of the product basket is in specialised cement. With consumer needs changing, our focus in the coming years is to expand the offering of more value-added products," said Madhumita Basu, chief of sales, marketing and innovation, Nuvoco Vistas.

Citing an example, Basu said microfibre-based cement, which constitutes around 5 per cent of the trade volume, is expected to double in the coming years.

On the production side, the company is looking to manage costs through the installation of captive power and waste heat recovery units.

of the areas that we have taken up is captive power units and waste heat recovery. These are fundamental cost reduction plans. The benefits are expected to kick in from the next financial year," Basu said.

Nuvoco has six plants in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Bengal and Haryana with an overall capacity of 11 million tonnes per annum, running at 95 per cent capacity utitilisation.

The company has put in motion a debottlenecking exercise which is set to unlock another 1 million tonne capacity next fiscal. In addition to the six plants, Nirma itself has a standalone cement unit in Rajasthan with capacity of around 2 million tonnes per annum.

Higher output

Domestic cement production in first nine months of 2017-18 was 216.5 million tonnes, higher by 2.7 per cent, compared with 210.8 million tonnes in the corresponding year-ago period.

Based on the current trends, ratings and research firm Icra expects a demand growth of around 3 per cent in 2017-18. This demand growth is expected to improve to 4-5 per cent in 2018-19.