India Cements Ltd is poised for expanding its cement manufacturing facilities in northern part of the country by setting up four new cement plants at Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra in the near future, Company Joint President Rakesh Singh said.

Addressing the press here after flagging off the Mobile Concrete Testing Lab for Tiruchirapalli and Madurai, Singh said India Cements was the largest cement manufacturer in South with seven factories in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu with a total current capacity of nine million tonnes.

They planned to produce 11 million tonnes of cement during the current fiscal and 14 million tonnes in 2009-10.

He said the one million tonne plant at Ennore near Chennai will commence its commercial production shortly.

S Muthaiah, Assistant General Manager (Marketing), Tiruchirapalli, said after gauging the response to the mobile laboratory, the facility would be introduced in places like, Coimbatore, Tiruppur and Puducherry.