UDAYAPUR, Oct 31: After a month long renovation and upgrade, the government owned Udayapur Cement Factory has resumed its production.

The renovation is the first in the factory's 31 years history. It was set up in 2044 BS with support from Japan's government. The renovation cost Rs. 90 million and 30 engineers from India.

"We've resumed our operations and have started to send our cement in the market," Surendra Paudel, the factory's general manager said adding that they'd need to do maintenance in the next 10 years.  "If we had maintained the factory regularly, we'd not have to spend such hefty price," Paudel added.

The factory had cancelled its bid for renovation after it turned out too expensive. In turn, the factory invited its own technical team for maintenance. "If we had relied on bid, this would have cost around a billion rupees."

The factory has been plagued by political interests and had been recurring losses. Despite its capacity of producing 800 metric tons of cement, it produced less than half until two years ago. "In the past two years, we have been able to upscale production to 700 metric tons every day."

The new upgrade will enable the state owned factory to produce between 850 to 900 metric tons of cement, Paudel added. In FY 2074/75, the factory was able to earn two billion rupees, chief of sales department, Ram Bahadur GC said. He added that three days after they had upgraded the factory, it had sold 24,000 sacks of cement.  

 
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