What is your take on the current building material market? Currently, the building material industry stands at around USD 225 billion in terms of market size. The growing action in both infrastructure and real-estate development has bought the buoyancy back in building material industry. The sector is projected to register a growth of 10 per cent in 2022 and a CAGR growth of 8 per cent to 9 per cent over the next five years. What real challenges are faced by the manufacturers of building materials? Fluctuating cost of raw materials and fuel is one big concern for building material sector. Volatility of cement price and time spent in fetching aggregates from quarries situated far from RMC plants is a key deterrent affecting the RMC industry. Producing customised building material products with precision, and ensuring stringent quality checks to ensure quality output also increases challenges for this industry. Adopting sustainable processes and using recyclable material in manufacturing processes is also a daunting task for every manufacturer. Another challenge which most manufacturers face is competition from unorganised players. What is your take on the latest technologies coming in the infrastructure concrete sector? The concrete market has undergone a journey of resilient growth in the past two years. As far as new technologies are concerned, ready mix concrete (RMC) is becoming a preferred choice amongst developers of all sizes and projects. Depending on the application and job site requirements, RMC is customized to deliver the most durable and strong concrete that is high-strength, lightweight, self-compacting, and dynamic. What kind of investment is anticipated in concrete technology in the near future? The demand for concrete in on an upward trajectory and to address this need will require extensive investments in the space. We are working on opening few RMC plants at new locations based on demand and required supply. How do you see the future of RMC in infrastructure development? The biggest consumer of RMC is the infrastructure industry and this sector has been growing exponentially, especially after the pandemic. From a market perspective, the rise in the number of real-estate projects and the growing investment from the government towards infrastructure has boosted the demand for the product positively. The industry had registered a steady rise in growth in the last one year and the momentum is expected to grow further indicating a huge potential.