Hyderabad: The Telangana government on Monday asked cement producers to bring down cement prices, which have skyrocketed in the last month.
The prices have increased by Rs 100 per bag, putting the construction industry in a fix, besides imposing a heavy burden on people planning to construct houses.
Builders, too, have stalled several projects due to the steep increase in cement prices and construction activity has virtually come to a halt across the entire state.
A cement bag, which used to cost Rs 230 to Rs 250 in May, now costs Rs 330 to Rs 350.
Chief secretary Rajiv Sharma held talks with cement producers at the Secretariat.
However, the latter remained non-committal and said that they would discuss the matter among themselves before taking a decision on price reduction.
Representatives from all major private cement companies attended the meeting. However, they refused to speak to the media waiting outside.
Mr Sharma, meanwhile, said that the meeting with cement producers was held on the directions of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and added that they had been requested to take steps to control the prices.
Official sources said since the state government had no control over cement prices, it could only “request” the cement producers to bring down prices.
Mr Rao, too, had admitted in the recent Legislative Assembly session that after the cement prices were left to the market forces to determine, there was little the state government could do on that front.
The Opposition Telugu Desam, meanwhile, alleged that the Telangana Rashtra Samiti was trying to escape its responsibility to protect the interests of some bigwigs involved in cement production.
“The price of a cement bag was less than Rs 250 during Governor’s Rule in the state till June. After the TRS government took over on June 2, the price started escalating sharply and has now touched almost Rs 350 per bag. This shows that the TRS has failed to regulate cement prices. When the Governor could control the prices for the last three-four months, why can’t the TRS government regulate it? We doubt the sincerity of the government in controlling cement prices. We demand the Chief Minister to give a clarification on this issue,” said TD MLA A. Revanth Reddy.
