Cement maker The India Cements Ltd has reported a standalone profit for the quarter ending December 31, 2021 at Rs 3.30 crore, a senior official said on Friday.

The city-based company had registered standalone profits at Rs 62.02 crore during the corresponding quarter in the previous year. For the nine month period ending December 31, 2021, standalone profits slipped to Rs 62.69 crore from Rs 150.41 crore registered a year ago.

Total income on standalone basis stood at Rs 1,114.22 crore as against Rs 1,162.91 crore registered same period last fiscal. Total income for the nine month period on standalone basis ending December 31, 2021, grew to Rs 3,333.11 crore from Rs 2,998.68 crore registered same period last fiscal.

Briefing reporters, company Vice Chairman and Managing Director N Srinivasan said the company’s performance was severely affected by the record monsoon in the southern states with consequent flooding in several areas resulting in stalling of construction activities.

“This was further compounded by downward movement in selling prices in the east and north east markets from where the company withdrew as the sales in those areas became un-remunerative,” he said.

This led to a lower volume for the quarter for the company that together with the onslaught of increased fuel prices had a telling impact on the bottomline for the quarter under review, he said.

Srinivasan said the severe impact of increase in coal prices during the earlier part of the year was felt fully during the quarter under review on the power and fuel cost.

“With this double impact of increase in cost and negative growth in market resulted in selling price pressure the performance of the cement industry in general was affected,” he said.

The performance of the company has to be viewed which was sub-optimal during the quarter under review with a volume of 21.08 lakh tonnes for the quarter as compared to 23.77 lakh tonnes in previous year.

For the nine-month period ended December 31 last year, the overall volume was at 64.13 tonnes up by eight per cent as compared to 59.12 lakh tonnes. Capacity utilisation of the company was around 54 per cent as compared to 61 per cent during the same quarter of the previous year, he said.