Thank you, [Rayo?] .

Good evening, everyone. On behalf of HDFC Securities, I welcome all of you to the Q3 9 months FY26 earnings call of Birla Corporation Limited.

From the Birla Corp, we are hosting Mr. Sandip Ghose, MD and CEO, Mr.

Aditya Saraogi, Group CFO, along with other senior members of the team. I now hand over the call to the management for their opening remarks, which will be followed by Q&A.

Over to you, Sandip sir.

Very good afternoon, everyone. Since we are speaking for the first time in the new year, although late, but a Happy New Year to all of you.

Thank you so much for joining in such large numbers on a Saturday afternoon. I understand that all of you will be in a rush to go back home for the weekend because tomorrow, in a way, is also a working day for you with the budget.

We will try to keep the call short and not stretch it further. This quarter has been a quarter, as we all know, of mixed results, mixed outcomes, mixed expectations or contrary to expectations, and etc.

It's a bit of mixed sentiments when we are speaking here. What I'd like to emphasize before—I think the figures are before you, the press release is before you—only a couple of points is what I'd like to emphasize before handing it over to my colleagues who are present here: Mr.

Aditya Saraogi, Group CFO; I have Nitin Soni, he is our Deputy Treasurer; Mr. Manoj Mehta, our Company Secretary and Compliance Officer; Mr.

Kalidas Pramanik, who is our Chief Marketing Officer—you would have noted Mr. Pramanik's appointment has been extended by two more years, he was otherwise due to retire as per age and rules this quarter, but the board has extended him for two more years; and Mr.

[Rajat Prusti?] , our CMOP, Chief of Manufacturing and Projects.

All of us are here, they will take on the questions. I also have Mr.

Sandeep Asrani, who is my Chief of Staff of MD's office. They will take specific questions.

I would like to emphasize on two things. Birla Corporation, you would have noticed, and those who are following the company for a long time, we have always tried to stay on course of a strategy irrespective of market fluctuations or changes in the market, because we believe we have a certain proven strategy which has worked for us and that is working for also our stakeholders.

We try to remain as steady or on course on that strategy. What is that strategy, at the cost of repetition?

We have limited capacity, we want to maximize our capacity utilization over there. We want to focus primarily on the trade segment, and that is B2C.

We want to also focus on blended cement, which is environment-friendly cement. We will, given our situation, we will focus continuously on cost reduction, increasing efficiencies, including lead distance, our go-to-market strategy, distribution, and building of brands.

Building of brands will get translated both not just by our volume of our premium products, but also overall improving the net realization. We are a company because we have clinker limited this thing, we always measure our sales not in terms of realization—for us, in fact, realization comes very secondary.

What we look at is clinker realization. Per tonne of clinker, where am I getting the maximum realization?

Therefore, this is a function of product mix, geomix—that is in terms of distance—and product mix would, of course, imply the premium product versus popular products, but not necessarily. Premium product may not give you the maximum clinker realization in all markets.

If we are able to sell more of popular product, if we don't want to vacate a market which is close to our factory, etc., where there is a demand for popular product, because that will give us a higher clinker realization. We look at this very carefully, and we have found that this gives us dividend in terms of results in any situation.

Therefore, you'll find that in the last quarter, when we analyze volumes, we see not only many of our peers, but also the very large players, the volume leaders, they focused a great deal on non-trade or infra sales. Some people have gone up to sell almost 50% of their volumes during that quarter in certain months in non-trade sales.

Whereas we consciously stuck to our strategy of focusing on trade and blended cement. As a result, our percentage of trade sales has grown during this quarter in terms of proportion, percentage of blended cement has grown, and our percentage of premium cement has also grown.

If you see our results, it is a function of this strategy. I'm not going to comment as to whether you see our results in what light, whether it's favorable, but whatever we have delivered, we have been able to deliver because of this strategy.

Our capacity utilization also we have kept at our peak, and including our Mukutban plant, which was a matter of concern for many of you for a long time. Mukutban plant is performing absolutely beautifully in this thing, and happy to share, if I may, because in this month, we have made the highest ever dispatch from Mukutban over there.

That ramping up which has been done, about which many people were skeptical, many people had raised doubts, and we have been able to do that. Most importantly, we have been able to do that over there in that market with a large share of premium products and even in the high category of OPC 53, wherever is relevant because in that market, we've been able to sell that.

That has been our strategy, and that has really been what you are seeing in terms of results. This is primarily the point which I would like to emphasize.

In terms of logistics, we have reduced lead distance. In fact, our lead distance is today

328 km,

which, if you all know, is better than many large players who have a higher proportions of grinding units for themselves. Our grinding unit to integrated plant ratio is lower than many people, but despite that, our lead distance is actually lower than many of them, and we have been able to further reduce that.

We have had one, specifically, we have had a couple of handicaps against which we worked, and I'd be upfront in stating that: we do not have our grinding unit in Bihar. During the period of Bihar elections, as we all know, rail movement in Bihar was hugely impaired because the railways allocated trains for passenger movement in preference to goods movement.

We not having a grinding unit there, we were handicapped. At the same time, while the handicap has not bothered us so much because the growth which came in Bihar, we see that the growth has been primarily on the non-trade sector.

In non-trade, Kalidas, how much has been the growth in December we've seen? 100% growth in Bihar?

Bihar is almost 99%.

Bihar, almost 99% growth we have seen, as per our estimates, has grown in non-trade. We did not participate in that.

Whatever material we took there, we sold it in trade, and so we are not unhappy about that. In UP area, there, we have not only maintained our realization, we have been able to improve our realization despite the fact that many of our, again, our peer group and competition focused heavily into non-trade.

Some people, as we have seen, and you know better, they have sold almost 50% of their volumes in non-trade. They have their own reasons: some of them have got newer plants and they had to do capacity utilization because of incentives which they get from the state.

We stayed again because we believe in our brand, we believe in the long-term benefits of having our brands, and therefore we did not want to veer from that strategy and dilute our equity in the market. We hold on to that, and as a result, during this period, how we've been able to increase our realization higher than others is because our premium prices we held steady, percentage volume of premium went up, our premium volume which has gone up to what, 60%, Kalidas?

What is the number? 63% it has gone up to.

Now if you see the gap between premium and our popular is one thing, but actually due to this whole aberration in the market and huge pressure on non-trade, the general popular segment prices went down further. As a result, the delta of our premium brand vis-à-vis the popular brand generally in the market, which operated at point in times about ₹30 generally, that even in some places, it went up to ₹40 premium.

As you all know, and this is published information or information in open domain, the trade and the non-trade prices during this period sometime has gone up to upwards of ₹60 to our estimates we have seen in the market, even ₹80 difference. That is where it required a lot of resolve, a lot of determination for us not to get swayed, stay with the strategy, and we think therefore that's paid us results.

Where we got affected in terms of our bottom line, apart from the exceptional item which everybody has had to put for the labor code, we did have some continuing problems in some of our plants. A couple of them were more to do with industrial relations sort of problem or external factors.

In our own plant, we had some breakdowns in one of our plants over there in Madhya Pradesh, due to which some of our volume dispatches got constrained. We had to take a hit on that account.

In terms of, as I said, in sales strategy, marketing strategy, I am personally very vindicated. Incidentally, I finished three years of my stint as Managing Director.

I, too, was supposed to retire on 31st December, but the board has extended my tenure, I'm still here. Otherwise, I would not have been probably addressing this conference for you.

At the end of three years, the journey which we had embarked on at the beginning of 2023, I personally feel vindicated, and I say this with some degree of modest satisfaction. Thank you very much.

I will now pass it on to my colleagues to do a quick wrap-up and then open up for questions. Anything you want to add?

We can open it for questions.

As I said, everybody is in a hurry. We've had our board meeting since the morning, all of that, we are also tired, we will not stretch the call too much.

Thank you.

Hi, sir. Thank you.

Sir, I have a couple of questions, but I understand that you normally don't allow, but request you to allow me. First, a couple of data points which will be helpful to everybody: Mukutban volume for this quarter, CC ratio, capex for 9 months, net debt, incentive for third quarter.

We'll respond to those.

Mukutban volume was 6.3 lakh tonnes. 6.3 lakh tonnes was the volume.

I don't have the exact CC ratio, it will be in the vicinity of 0.6. 0.61, 0.62.

At console level, CC ratio would be 1.53?

1.6 actually.

1.6, okay. Got it.

Approximately we're in that range, huh.

1.58.

1.58.

Got it.

Capex for 9 months was around ₹300 crore.

Okay.

What else?

Net debt, incentive.

Incentives in this quarter, we have booked about ₹8 crore.

Incentive, as you realized, is obviously lower because of the GST correction.

Yeah. Net debt?

Net debt is ₹2,556 crore.

Right. Kcal cost?

1.47.

1.47. Yeah.

Sir, now considering it's good to see that in terms of our both trade and premium volume growth, there is a decent growth of 8% and 15% plus. It is only the non-trade which has actually impacted the overall here.

Now given that what we understand is non-trade prices have kind of gone up, if you can also quantify, what we hear is ₹15, ₹20 odd. In that scenario, now we will still continue with our strategy, and how do we now see in terms of the volume growth going forward for this quarter and maybe going forward, given the capacity that we will be adding, Kundanganj maybe by end of this March, 1.4 million tonnes?

The rest will be coming in the FY27 and '28 and '29. Just trying to understand how one can look at the volume growth going forward.

Saket, first of all Shravan.

Shravan, first of all Yes, Shravan. Saket has always top of mind because he is always there in the questions, he sends questions before the conference, after the conference, sorry for

I thought I will be in your mind.

No, of course. You are on my mind, not top of mind, because each one is in a different way.

Now the point is, Shravan, we on non-trade, I will tell you, it might sound strange to you, we don't even look at non-trade prices. We don't we don't look at non-trade prices because we ideally we will not like to sell a single tonne.

When we sell in non-trade, if we have to sell something, then we see whether it makes sense for us to sell it or not. Whether non-trade has gone up by ₹10, ₹15 is not of concern to us until we are unable to sell the trade volumes.

That is where our focus, that is where our sales team's focus is, and we we kind of if they come somebody comes to me with a non-trade proposal, we consider it to be, people hesitate because people will think that we think they are not able to sell trade, that's why they are coming to us with non-trade. Our strategy is not going to change on trade, non-trade, because it can only change if there a situation so dramatically change happens that by which non-trade prices go higher than trade or realization in non-trade is higher than trade, which we don't see happening at least in a foreseeable period.

Given our capacity constraints, given that we operate at almost 100% or sometimes 100% plus capacity in some places, non-trade is not of at all of concern to us. Rest of it is we are looking at a overall growth, I suppose, 4% to 5% in line with what industry has done.

We are in this quarter, although there is a surge in demand, but it is not a upsurge or it's not like you have a very, very buoyant situation. In this quarter, we are looking at in this quarter with greater interest, volume we know will come.

Again, our situation is slightly different because we are already selling enough. Our focus is to see where the prices are.

We we hope the prices will improve, and in that context, we sometimes look at a non-trade to see if non-trade is improving, we hope our the trade prices will also go up. That's broadly the strategy, Shravan.

Thank you.

Yeah. Lastly, sir, capex now for full year, last time we said ₹800 odd crore, and possible for next year, how much one can look at?

Because both our expansions, roughly ₹4,400 crore is the announced capex. If you can help us broadly how How well

you know us better, you know us better. We don't we look at the present.

That is what we think matters. We never talk of the future.

As it is, we give a guidance. For the next year, we will give a guidance in the next call.

Okay?

Okay. In fourth quarter, how much capex, sir, mode?

We already said that.

You were not paying attention.

It will be less than the earlier guidance that we have given. Okay?

Okay. Thank you, sir, and all the best.

Thank you very much. Thanks so much.

Have a nice weekend. Now who, Parth?

Pathanjali.

Hi, sir. How are you, sir?

Thank you for the opportunity, sir.

Thank you. Always a pleasure.

General doubts I have. Your unit cost of production has gone down quite a bit compared to the last year, some of your initiatives seem to have been working.

There is just one doubt I have, though, is that our share of premium has gone up, our share of trade has gone up, but our profitability is not reflecting that part because our cost reduction quarter-on-quarter is about ₹200 from '24 to '25, but EBITDA has gone up by ₹160. What am I missing here?

Essentially, the pricing issue is what you're missing. Because Central region, etc., prices have been depressed.

Only area where price was slightly decent was North, and that is about less than 1/3 of our volumes. Maharashtra also prices were not there.

That's the only thing you're missing. Despite our increasing proportion of blended, etc., we obviously couldn't make up for loss in realization.

We have said that, in some cases, some part, we have also lost a little bit in volumes because of issues, so that is what has happened. Aren't you happy overall with our realization and the premiumization and our focus on blended?

No, your journey is definitely being very encouraging because you've grown more on trade and you've increased share of premium. I'm just trying to see if it comes through in numbers, then I'll be much happier.

That's my

It is coming through, boss. I think the one error you people make is, and we are not at all shy about that, we still have a popular component in our sale.

We are premium as our definition is much, much higher than anybody else who is talking of premiumization now, certainly in our category. We operate in popular segment, and that we would continue to do.

We don't want to vacate that space. We have got heritage brands there, strong brands, legacy brands over there.

As I was explaining earlier, in some places, we get very good clinker realization in our popular brands, we don't want to vacate that. We will continue to look at that.

Therefore, in a combined way, the problem arises if you were to just simply see us as a premium company and compare us with others. Again, the people who are selling premium, I don't want to take names, who were earlier at a certain level, you'll see from the results, you'll get an idea of how even the B2C market has moved during this quarter.

Sir, this quarter, I'm quite happy with your earnings number, sir. Only thing is the volume, you mentioned that there was some bit of challenge in one of the plants.

Is there any possibility, can you quantify how much impact in volume terms you would have had because of that?

We would not like to because it's a combination of a lot of things. As I told you, one plant, there was a little bit of technical problem.

Another place, we had some sort of an IR problem. Another place, it was more of a logistics-related issues, not logistics issues, but all that.

It's a combination, and this is part of the game, I don't want to separately spell it out.

Got it, sir. Thank you so much.

Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity.

Two set of questions from mine. Firstly on pricing, what you mentioned that competition is intense and price increase might be limited going ahead.

Is this across all our operating regions, or is mainly limited to the Central region? That was one.

When do you expect this competitive intensity to ease out? Also, if you can just help with how are smart cement prices versus average of Q3 across all our regions, both trade and non-trade?

That was on pricing. Secondly on market share, this quarter actively, we appear to have lost market share, and that is particularly on the non-trade side, as prices remain weak.

What gives us the confidence that we will again be able to regain our lost market share as prices recover? Yeah.

See, first of all, let me start with the market share. I don't see the relevance of market share in terms of non-trade.

We are not in that space at all. We look at our market share in the trade segment, in the B2C segment.

There, we don't think we have lost market share. In fact, we would have improved market share in certain places by a couple of basis points.

That is what we focus on, because our concerns are very different. Some people have set up capacity, they're operating at a very low CU.

I'm operating at 100% CU capacity utilization level. Somebody who is operating at 55%, 60%, they will sell non-trade because if they have set up also units where basis of incentive, they would like to sell more and get it.

As a result, that's why you have seen how non-trade prices shrank in the last quarter. We are not in that game, and we are not even worried about.

As I said, I'll be very happy if my market share in non-trade is zero and I'm selling everything in trade. That's not the game which we are in, and we are looking at purely on market share.

Therefore, I was seeing some of the commentaries of other analysts who have written about market share loss, etc. Sorry, we don't see market share in that view.

We think the relevance of market share is essentially in the B2C. I come from an FMCG background, therefore for me, that's what makes sense.

You never look at industrial sales, etc., and think of market share there. That's the point.

Spot prices, I don't think that'll be indicative to say in any specific market. We believe that in terms of what we call our premium category, we are not only at par, some places, we may be between ₹2 to ₹5 higher than the top brand in that category.

By premium, our definition is, frankly, we say the A category players. The second player in the A category, our belief is their pricing position is diluted significantly in most key markets.

There is one player with whom we kind of compare, and from them, we are either at par, as I said, couple of rupees higher, in some markets, maybe even ₹5 higher. When you come to the popular segment, that's the B category segment, we firmly believe, from the general B category status, our prices are at least ₹10 higher than the B category players in where we have our heritage brands or legacy brands, I'm talking about.

Heritage and legacy, to spell it out for you, is Samrat in Central zone; in the North zone, it is Chetak. These are our heritage brands.

We sell some amount of those brands in the Maharashtra region, but that's where it is not a heritage brand, that's a popular brand, I'm not considering there. In Maharashtra, our focus is purely on Perfect Plus.

We are a small player in the East, that is West Bengal, and there, Unique Plus has done extremely well. We sell in a very limited geography, we don't want to spread thin, we don't have those volumes.

That has done well and gives us excellent clinker realization because of the slag cement and we are able to do that. To reveal a secret, I'll tell you, people had laughed at me even I had said in some of these conference calls that we may find it profitable if we have excess clinker in Mukutban to bring it all the way to Durgapur.

We are actually finding that is true even now. Okay?

That's partly because our clinker cost in Mukutban is very, very competitive, one of the best in the industry. That's broadly the position how I will answer your question.

May not have satisfied you totally, but that's all I can reveal at the moment. Thanks,

sir, for the detailed answers, and all the best. Just on the competitive intensity, if you can just help me with when to expect that to ease out?

Come again?

Just on the competitive intensity, when do you expect that to ease out?

Competitive intensity. See, competitive intensity for us, the only area of competitive intensity issue is in Central.

Central, again, the competitive intensity, there are two parts to it. We were concerned about how the competition is going to take us on in terms of the trade segment.

We are finding, for whatever reason, the people whom we were expecting, they seem to be more concerned about their volumes and the volumes they're trying to get from non-trade. We thought they will probably try to get it by deep discounting in the trade segment, but they seem to probably find it better to sell non-trade, or they have not been able to penetrate the trade market or create their own distribution network so well.

Acceptance of the brand and their brands in those places in the trade network is probably not as good, they're not getting similar amount of traction, they find it much easier to sell in non-trade. That per se is not affecting us.

Our really the point of reckoning is, I told you, without naming them, some of the A category brands, and we try to be over there and go on consolidating our share over there. In terms of competitive intensity in the North, we are a very small player, we've got just 6% or 7% market share there, competitive intensity does not affect us in that way except for the price levels in the market.

Similarly in the East. In Maharashtra, there, again, overall if you see, competitive intensity doesn't affect us that much except in our core market of Vidarbha and Khandesh, that area.

There competitive intensity, there has been some changes which have happened over there in recent times due to some consolidation factors. Brands have changed hands, even existing brands have tried to do some kind of rationalization, they're trying to do brand rationalization, etc.

Those have changed the dynamics in those markets, but that has actually worked to our advantage.

Thanks, sir, for the detailed answers, and all the best.

Thank you so much.

Hello. Good evening, sir.

I have a question on next round of expansion. What are the timelines we are looking at for the next round of clinker expansion in Central region?

Essentially, we are looking at, first of all, we've already said the Kundanganj Line 3 will come on stream in this quarter itself. Then we are looking at Maihar Line 2, essentially.

That'll be FY28 is when we are looking at it, and in parallel with that, will come up our grinding, first two grinding units.

Gaya and Prayagraj. That will take our total capacity to 24.2 million tonnes by FY28, and by FY29, we plan to take this capacity up to 27.6 million tonnes.

Okay. Sorry, is that 28 to 29 bridge of 3 million tonnes?

Sorry?

What is the bridge from 20 24.2 to 27.6? What are the additions there?

There will be doubling the clinker capacity at Maihar, and together with that, we'll put up a split grinding unit in Gaya and Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh. In phase two, we will have a further expansion of 1.4 million tonnes.

In phase one, we'll put 1.4 million tonnes, and again in phase two also, we'll put another 1.4 million tonnes in Gaya in Bihar. Together with that, in northern part, Western UP, maybe in Aligarh or somewhere close by, we intend to put up a 2 million tonnes grinding unit.

This is broadly the split of 24.2 and 27.6.

That's the visibility we have, and then we will see that

There might be some tweaking in terms of the location of grinding units, but this is broadly the

Broadly the thing, and we're trying to consolidate our limestone holding. As you all have seen, in terms of our mines acquisition, etc., so that's where our focus lies.

Sir, just clarity on clinker. Clinker and expansion of these all grinding units is in FY29, not FY28, that's what you said?

No, 28 by '28, the increase in capacity will be 4.2 million tonnes. By FY29, we'll have another 3.4 million tonnes.

At the end of FY28, the capacity will increase from 20 to 24.2, and by FY29, it will increase from 24.2 to 27.6.

Sure. One other question is on recently, some mine in Rajasthan got canceled or delayed.

Can you elaborate on that? That was my last question.

We are examining that. That has happened, but we are examining the decision, and we don't want to comment on it just now.

We are looking at various options, including the legal options.

Yeah. If we have to pursue a legal option, we will see, because we don't see clearly any justification because this was not that we are the only bidders who got it, this was multiple bidders who, after bidding this, got.

Because we got that, we did not bid for some of the other mines which had come up in the neighborhood. We don't think it has been a very equitable decision.

We are examining options, as Mr. Saraogi said, and you'll probably have an answer in that in the coming few weeks.

This mine was towards the expansion at the Rajasthan plant or just the extension of life of the business in Rajasthan?

No, no, expansion. Expansion.

New plant.

Jaisalmer.

Jaisalmer. That was my question.

Thank you.

All right.

Hello, sir. Just one thing, what is the timeline we are looking for Kundanganj Line 2 commissioning?

Earlier, I think you guided for this quarter, and

Line 3. Again, we said that, Raghav.

Within this quarter.

Within this quarter, Kundanganj Line 3, we said that earlier, you probably missed it, that we'll be doing it this quarter. Thank you.

Okay. Sir, just one thing on realization side, what's my reading?

Firstly, on the congratulation, a great set of a trade percentage in the premium product side. Sir, just wanted to understand one thing.

Despite being a highest trade channel and highest one of a premium product mix into our category of overall sales, our EBITDA per tonne is still lower in the terms of a B category size of player. Is it despite our base product price is a very low realization, or our premium product is a realigned with the base price or base product price of some

We don't align our premium product price with the base product. We peg it with the market.

Okay? In fact, that is our clear this thing.

Our sales team, nobody speaks of our base product plus X or premium minus X, etc. That is not there.

It's a function of couple of things. You will realize, our cost, we've got certain disparities.

We've got legacy plants, we've got new plants. New plants, the costs are very competitive; legacy plants, the costs are much higher.

The average cost changes. In some of the legacy and the new plants may not be as proximate to the market.

Very clear: say, Satna is much closer to UP, Maihar, though the costs are much better, Maihar is further down. There is an additional component we have to So there are the cost elements which come in.

Then when you look at it overall, it's a weighted average. In the weighted average situation, it's a known fact, again, other competitors have also commented, Central region price has been the most challenged or tight, as opposed to what North has been.

Our presence in North is less. Even whatever presence we have, our Northern plant, all of you know that because of a certain reason, our costs are high, we would not be making that kind of margin which some others will be making, newer plants.

Some of them in terms of their thing when you're talking of, I don't know who you meant in terms of B category players, some of those players who I would think you're talking about, they have got very new plants located in places, their cost of production would be lower. They also have advantage of incentive, which we don't have today.

They are even selling OPC at an incentive. Okay?

Getting incentive on OPC, so that's the reason why ₹60, ₹80 price difference came up, because they could undercut prices because they had an incentive package in those states. Those are all kind of factors.

We know we have limitations in our EBITDA, and we are working consciously to that on multiple fronts to see how do we take our EBITDA to the level which we had earlier indicated, the guidance which we had given, but due to circumstances beyond our control, there has been a slide even from, you'll see, last quarter of previous fiscal to now, and for reasons all of us know, that's how the market and everything is moved. We are working therefore on every front.

We know we have a limitation in size, limitation in capacity, we'll have to squeeze the lemon from all directions, which we're doing. Thank you.

Hello?

Hi, Saket.

Namaskar, sir,

and

thank you for the opportunity. Namaskar.

Yeah.

Sir, in the earlier press releases also, we have mentioned about our foray into the RMC business, and its contribution to rise going ahead. What's currently the thought process?

Sir, you have mentioned about pricing for the Central market and the Northern market. How have prices behaved in the Eastern market?

Because I think some capacity additions have happened there also.

You are sitting in Calcutta, Saket, we are a very small player here. You should tell me about the pricing in Eastern market and what is happening.

You have a better sense of the market. We are a very small player.

We have a very good clinker realization here, because we have a good brand, small brand, but a good brand, and we sell in a limited geography.

Mostly sells PSC.

Huh?

Mostly sells PSC.

Mostly slag cement, and that too in the proximity of our plant, so that is fine. We really, we don't even think of the big players because they're far too big for us in this region, whether you talk of Dalmia, UltraTech, Adani.

We are just a drop in the ocean for them, we float as the market goes and try to maximize our realization. That's as far as East is concerned.

I don't know what more to add in terms of Central and North. We've already covered.

On RMC, as we have said, it's still not a big-ticket item for us. We are making steady progress.

We are, I think today, we are focusing on areas, we're trying to clearly see brand synergies and our market presence. Far, we are progressing only in UP.

I think we are on the fifth plant, if I'm not mistaken, in RMC. No, three

to four.

Varanasi and Gorakhpur. Varanasi, I think, is almost done.

It's a small thing. We are just testing the waters because we know a lot of big people have burned their fingers.

We don't have, some people have the strategy because, again, they have additional volume, they want to utilize their cement through RMC. We don't have any such thing.

In fact, sometime my RMC business head finds it cheaper to buy other people's cement than talk to Mr. Pramanik.

Mr. Pramanik is very tight-fisted.

Very often, he is able to get OPC, and we don't make OPC, if we can help it, we don't want to make OPC. They get OPC from outside.

It's still early days, we are figuring out our strategy, and we would like to move cautiously there in the market.

Okay. Sir, with Kundanganj Line being commercialized for Q4, last year Q4, we did volume of 5.25.

Taking into account what the strength you have spoken about the uptake in the volume for January also, does the 5.25 number looks good, the base looks good for us to report growth on this number?

We have talked of 3% to 4% growth. We will do that.

Sir, for 9 months, we have already done that, I was just looking at Q4 being

Fiscal also, we are not really setting up too much of Kundanganj capacity will come by juggling around where we are grinding, etc. That is what we'll do.

We are modest, and we are giving up, as you saw, we are not running after volumes in non-trade, etc. Kya hoga, yaar?

Tum 4%, 5% ke jagah mein agar 5.5% hoga, kya farak hota hai? Why split hair on that?

Jee, sir. Lastly, sir, on the jute part Nahi,

you can't go on adding questions, Saket.

Sir. If you allow, then a last question on jute, and then

I'll Jute pe to jo bolna tha, bol diya, yaar. Wo bhi tum to Calcutta me baithe ho, aapko pata hai jute market

kya

Very small portion of our thing. ₹2.5 crore ka impact on the bottom line.

Why do you want to take other people's time on that?

Theek hai, sir. Dhanyawad, sir,

aapke sabhi uttar ke liye. Bahut-bahut dhanyawad.

Thank you for keeping it short.

Hi, sir.

Shravan, now why you want to have a second innings? You asked the maximum number of questions, and we were most forthright to give you all the answers.

Sir. Thank you very much.

Sir, it was kind of a data points which is, I think, relevant for everybody. Only the data points.

Actually, after the call, we normally don't get a chance to any data points. Historically maybe FY24, '25, or maybe 9 months, kcal per kg and power units, which normally a 65, 66, whatever.

What is the number for us, and kcal per kg, which is 720, 730, whatever, it's a broader, and the power cost. Why I am asking is just trying to understand the green share once it increases further, how one can see the power cost can come down.

Wo sab baad me batayenge. Saket

We don't disclose granular. No one else

That's a granular thing. Okay?

We'll keep it. Thank you, Shravan.

Okay.

I don't see your name in the queue. Rajesh, your name is not in the queue.

How are you coming in from backdoor entry?

Sir, just wanted to know on this capex spread, which you talked about this Maihar clinker and the other grinding unit. Tentatively, obviously, you will be taking these capex FY27 onwards.

What is the total project cost and how much we have already incurred, if any, on this project? Any broad ballpark number, how would that be split between 2 to 3 years?

See, overall project cost is around ₹4,750 crore including GST. Net of GST, it is about ₹4,200 crore.

Okay.

Okay.

We can't give you a year-wise split at this juncture. Maybe in the next conference call, we can give you an indication of how much capex we are going to incur in the next financial year and the remaining, of course, you can derive from there.

Sure,

sure. This fuel cost this quarter has gone up, right, Q3 versus Q2 marginally?

It has come down. In fact, it was around 1.5, it has come down to ₹1.47.

Oh, 1.47, okay. What is the trend you're looking at in Q4, and what is your fuel mix broadly?

It may increase marginally, at this juncture, we are looking at ₹1.5 per 1,000 kcal in Q4.

Okay. Fuel mix, sir, between petcoke, linkage, and imported coal?

About 30% is petcoke and imported coal, and 70% is indigenous, domestic.

Domestic, domestic. Great, sir.

That's all from my end. Over to you, [Rayo?]

.

Thank you very much. We close it now?

No, nothing. Thank you very much for joining us on a Saturday afternoon.

Let's all hope for a very good budget tomorrow, and we hope the international markets also there is less volatility for various reasons, which will help us all to plan our year better. Thank you once again, and once more, all the best for 2026.

Bye.