The Vicat Group has launched its Bharathi cement brand in the south Maharashtra market, which is being supplied from its new plant at Gulbarga, Karnataka.

The plant, which has a nominal capacity of 2.8Mta of cement was launched towards the the end of last year, and is a joint venture between Vicat of France and Sagar Cements of India.

The main target markets for the Vicat-Sagar plant are various districts in the south such as Kolhapur, Raigarh, Ratnagiri, Sangli, Sindhudurgh, Satara and Latur, Business Standard (of India reports. The plant is close to the south Maharashtra market and major cities such as Pune and Mumbai. The newspaper also quoted M Ravinder, head of marketing for Vicat’s India division as saying that the plant will also supply cement to north Karnataka and Telangana region in Andhra Pradesh.

In the future, the “Vicat Sagar” plant’s production capacity will be increased to follow the expected strong growth of the Indian market, Vicat said in a statement following the plant's start-up on 18 December 2012.