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Cement not unloaded in Kochi on Wednesday

Cement dealers in the State have launched a protest against leading cement brands for allegedly not paying them the difference in the billing and selling price of the product.

Cement companies bill a dealer for a certain price and the money is collected outright. However, the dealers are asked to sell the product according to the market trend. Any loss suffered by the dealer is made up by the cement companies, which release letters of credit periodically.

However, the Kerala Cement Dealers’ Association, which represents around 6,500 registered members in the State, claimed that the companies had not made the payments over the past 15 months.

Stephen Martin of the association said that cement dealers had stopped taking delivery of products from a leading brand from Wednesday. The action would be extended to other brands during the coming days, he said.

Besides the main dealers, there were around 25,000 sub-dealers, who fall within the purview of the protest action, he said. Cement was not unloaded in Kochi on Wednesday as the protest action got underway, he said. The boycott of the product would be extended to another brand of cement on June 20, he said.

Mr. Martin said that a substantial amount of money belonging to the dealers was stuck with the cement producing companies as they did not provide any credit in their transactions with the dealers.

Kerala was a big market for cement with the State requiring around nine lakh tonnes of the commodity per month, said Mr. Martin. Ernakulam was among the bigger consumers among the districts, accounting for 1.5 lakh tonnes of cement sales during a month, he said.

Source: The Hindu