TARA and Promac boost LC3 commercial programme with MoU

Technology and Action for Rural Development (TARA) organised an LC³ Celebration Day at its Head Office in New Delhi, India, on 19 March 2024. The event, supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, was kick-started by the signing of an MoU with PROMAC engineering. PROMAC engineering will cater to cement companies in India and across the globe to provide them a turnkey solution from ground-to-gate for producing calcined clay cement. 

TARA aims to develop the commercial reality of limestone calcined clay Cement or LC³ in India. The TARA-Promac partnership already has two existing LC³ orders in the pipeline and is poised to set up the first calcined clay production unit in India. TARA announced the first of these projects last year. It will be working with JK Lakshmi Cement to produce calcined clay cement at the Jakaypuram cement plant, Rajasthan India.

Various speakers at the celebration day from cement industries across India and the globe presented the readiness of their companies in producing LC³ and the need for it.

Dr Arun Kumar, President Emeritus, Development Alternatives Group expressed that support from the government of India is necessary to accelerate the uptake of LC³. This can be in the form of preferential procurement by the GOI for infrastructure and housing projects, easy availability of green finance and GST benefits for producing  green cement, he added.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Demenge, head of cooperation of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, New Delhi, congratulated the pioneering efforts of cement companies, user agencies and Bureau of Indian Standards in making this happen in such a short period of time. 

The event was attended by representatives from various cement industries like UltraTech Cements, JK Lakshmi Cements, JK Cements, Star Cements, Barak Valley Cement, SCC Lanka Ltd, Balaram Cements to name a few along with various construction companies, bilateral and multilateral agencies. 

LC³ is a new type of composite cement based on a blend of clinker, calcined clay and raw limestone. With a clinker content is as low as 50 per cent, LC³ technology has several advantages over ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and Portland pozzolanic cement (PPC). It reduces emission of CO₂ up to 40 per cent compared to OPC, has a lower energy consumption to produce, offers comparable strength with OPC and improved durability.