Cement cos go for dispatch holiday to create scarcity

In the absence of any control by the government, the cement manufacturers have been implementing dispatch holiday for the last four days obviously in an effort to create artificial demand and increase prices. This was not new for them as they became the dictators as far as the cement production, supply and arbitrary price fixation are concerned without depending actual market demand. The price of 50 kg bag of cement has been around Rs 270 for quite some time with minor fluctuations. Due to the differences among the manufacturers they could not hike the prices as they intended to do, it was learnt. At last, they all met in Chennai during the last week of January in the presence of one big shot in cement industry and decided to be united by forming a syndicate to dictate terms as far as the prices and prevent any drop in them.