The state government, which is facing grudges after repeated hikes in cement prices, has started an exercise to rein in it. Recently, after the price hike, a committee of officers of various departments constituted by the government visited the cement plants of the state for three days. During this, the committee scrutinized the mining lease, environment, mineral exploitation, documents etc. On Monday, an important meeting of the members of the committee was called in the secretariat. After inspecting the arguments of the companies and the actual situation, now the state government will take a decision on this. The committee will soon prepare its report and submit it to the government.
Presently, the state government has no control to fix the price of cement. Taking advantage of this, cement industry owners are selling expensive cement from outside states in Himachal. The government had also put pressure on the cement industry management to reduce the price, but to no avail. The reason behind the increase in the price of the industry has been that the raw material is getting expensive and due to this, cement has to be sold again and again. While the Congress government was in power, the cement bag which was available for Rs 250 is reaching the consumers up to Rs 420 after four years of the BJP government.
It is said that when the cement industry management did not agree to reduce the price of cement, the government sent a committee consisting of officials of industries department, mining department, pollution control board and other departments to take stock of the cement industries. On the other hand, Leader of Opposition Mukesh Agnihotri has been raising the issue of controlling the cement industries of the state with the Jairam government for a long time so that the prices of cement can be reduced.
