I had no background in technology or anything remotely technical. This trip was to Vikram Cement in core at Madhya Pradesh. It was one of only two cement units that the company had back then. I came back from there fascinated. I liked the clockwork discipline with which things worked there. The work culture most of all that you could make a material as significant as cement in a process that seemed quite simple. Surprisingly, I understood the cement making process rather well. My subsequent trips to Vikram Cement and growing familiarity with the business only strengthened my conviction about the cement opportunity. As it happened around then I read somewhere that cement is the most widely used substance in the world only after water. With that my imagination was really fired. But that early fascination was also quickly put through the grind of operational reality.
Every month back then, my father and I would sit with the engineering team and analyze all the breakdowns in the cement plants during the previous month, whether they were for mechanical, instrumentation, electrical or process related issues and the reasons to be taken to ensure that they don't recur. These sessions were tedious and taxing and I used to hope that one day we have many more plants making this monthly exercise unsustainable. And as it turns out that hope has scaled faster than I had ever imagined.
Back then our cement capacity was under 5 million tons and today with the commissioning of three plants at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Shra Jampur in UP and Patratu in Jharkhand, UltraTech Cement capacity would increase to a little over 200 million tons per annum.
I truly believe that this is as much a milestone for India as it is for the Aditya Birla Group and it holds great significance for me personally as well. This scale is unprecedented. No other company in any other sector in India has ever reached this capacity milestone. It places UltraTech as the largest cement company in the world outside of China.
Today, UltraTech Cement capacity is almost twice the cement capacity of the United States and greater than the entire cement capacity of the European Union.
The unstoppable, the relentless, and the unshakable team, UltraTech has actually created history tonight. Let's give them a huge round of applause.
I want to acknowledge the top leadership team of UltraTech, our managing director, Mr. KC Jamar. I'm going to request you to please stand so everyone can see. Chief Marketing Officer, Mr. Vive Agarwal. Chief Manufacturing Officer Mr. Ear Rajnaran. And CFO Mr.
200 million tons. Of this 200, about 110 million tons have been built through Greenfield and brownfield expansions and the rest 90 million tons through a series of acquisitions over the years. We started with the bang with the L&T Cement acquisition and never looked back as JP, Birla, Century, Kesoram and most recently India Cements joined the UltraTech family.
It took us 36 years to reach 100 million tons. The next 50 million followed in five and the 50 after that in just over two years. No cement company in the world has added capacity at this pace in the last decade.
The last 10 years have been truly transformational for UltraTech as they've been for India as well. India's highway network has expanded by nearly 60% and metro network by nearly 350%. Daily road construction has tripled to 35 kilometers a day. And when a country begins to build at this scale, cement transcends from being just a material to becoming a national development asset. UltraTech has grown in step with this ambition, rising from a capacity of 60 million tons per annum about a decade ago to over 200 million tons today. What this milestone ultimately represents to me is larger than just a corporate inflection point. It is evidence of an economy that has found both the intent and the capacity to build consistently, decisively, and with increasing velocity.
I've always said that scale is not everything. It is the only thing. This 200 million milestone makes me reflect on that yet again. What does scale do? What does it create? What does it signal? And what does it set in motion? To my mind, scale reveals itself in four ways. In impact, in reach, in reliability, and in responsibility. The 200 million tons number in my view does not represent only our capacity, but it represents India's place in the world. It describes an India that carries scale with confidence in its ambitions, its execution and its sense of self.
Scale is about trust. The trust of a country that has chosen to build with us year after year. The trust of an ecosystem that relies on us to show up on time every time.
Few materials offer as clear a reading of a nation's physical progress as cement. Which is why UltraTech's contribution to India must be understood not only through tonnage but where those tons finally go as well. One in every three homes built in India is built with UltraTech. Two of every five kilometers of NHAI's concrete roads, four of every five kilometers of metro rail and two of every five bags of cement that go into Indian airports. These figures are a measure of how deeply UltraTech is woven into the physical fabric of our country. The Central Vista, the new Parliament building, the Mumbai Coastal Road, the Dwarka Expressway, the Navi Mumbai International Airport, the Mumbai Ahmedabad Bullet Train. These are the physical signatures of a more confident India.
And we have been an integral part of each of these defining infrastructure projects. 65% of our trade sales come today from rural India. When a family in a village builds its first home, there is a very high chance it's built with our cement. That connection to the aspirations of rural India is something we hold with great pride.
And so I believe that you simply cannot reduce UltraTech's scale to a plant count or a capacity number. Scale is what reaches the market. Scale is what reaches the village, the district, the metro, the airport, the contractor, the home builder. Scale is what allows a company to serve both the India of landmark infrastructure and the India of everyday aspiration.
That brings me to the second facet of scale which is reach. The UltraTech network today spans 1.5 lakh channel partners with a presence across more than 90% of India's talukas. There is no other company in Indian industry that can say that it serves the construction needs of the entire country from the largest infrastructure project to the smallest individual home builder at this depth and breadth.
The third facet of scale is reliability. Scale when shaped with intent becomes I think much more than just size and what we have sought to build at UltraTech is something more exacting than just scale. It is the institutional character to deploy that scale well. That means being the most reliable partner and delivering the best products and services to our customers consistently and without exception. UltraTech's ability to deliver within four hours of an order being placed is a powerful assurance.
Behind that assurance sits an operating system of uncommon scale. Each year about 16,000 crores is committed to just moving materials that is to logistics. On any given day, more than 35,000 trucks are on the road carrying our cement. Over 70 rail rakes are in transit across long distances with clockwork precision. Around 35,000 orders are processed daily, reaching nearly 30,000 destinations from dense urban centers to remote project sites. This movement is anchored through a network of over 300 rail heads and 1350 warehouses positioned to keep supply close to demand. UltraTech's daily material movement is equivalent to 20% of the Indian railways total material movement on any day.
Scale of this nature carries consequences that travel well beyond operations. Our procurement basket alone exceeds 27,000 crores annually and every rupee of that spend flows through Indian suppliers, Indian logistics partners, Indian communities. Therefore, clearly the economic footprint of the company extends far beyond what its balance sheet can show. Around UltraTech's industrial footprint also sits a wider social one. Our CSR initiatives spearheaded by my mother now reach 1.8 million people across thousands of villages.
And then comes a fourth facet of scale which is responsibility. Scale over time acquires a certain gravity. At UltraTech that realization has steadily informed how we choose to grow. Sustainability has been the character of our growth.
A key facet of sustainability is future readiness and we have been steadily investing in building out a wider construction ecosystem. Over the past 5 years, UltraTech's ready mixed concrete business has expanded to 450 plants across 150 cities. The RMC business is adding capacity at a rhythm of one plant every few days. The building products and solution story is equally significant. Today, this division offers more than 100 products across tile adhesives, waterproofing, plasters, and mortars. This enables us to move closer to the customer and even deeper into the construction value chain than ever before, providing solutions as opposed to only products, which is also the philosophy of the Aditya Birla Group.
I must acknowledge that UltraTech's remarkable journey has been built on enduring partnerships. So many of our partners in this journey are here with us this evening. Across the country, thousands of dealers have stood with us carrying our name into markets where trust is earned one interaction at a time. CNF agents, transporters and retailers have kept the wheels turning, often against odds that do not show up in reports. Indian railways and port operators have enabled us to deliver seamlessly to customers across the country. Engineers and architects have placed their confidence in us no matter what. Masons and contractors have turned that confidence into homes, roads, and skylines. Our upstream partners have been just as integral. India's leading engineering, construction and infrastructure companies have built with us at moments that demanded both speed and certainty. Banks, financial institutions and investors have backed us with belief and so have our technology and equipment partners, vendors and other service providers. This milestone carries their imprint as much as it does ours.
Over the years, these associations have deepened into something more enduring, a community bound by shared outcomes. It has held firm through cycles, through volatility, through the sheer strain of growth at this pace. This relationship capital, as I call it, has been one of our superpowers. And for that I'm truly grateful to all of you.
And then there are our people, our team. No milestone of this scale is delivered by strategy alone. It is carried day after day by individuals who show up, solve problems and push forward. Some are recognized, many are not, but all have mattered. There is an extraordinary level of determination in UltraTech's team, a capacity to absorb disruption and to keep moving even as the ground shifts.
Growth at this pace also requires a certain kind of organizational courage. The courage to take risks, the courage to commit to keep building when the cycle is uncertain, to operate without precedent, to solve for complexity in real time. I would also like to acknowledge with gratitude the contribution of several leaders who have helped shape UltraTech's journey and cement its leadership position over the years. Mr. BL Jhawar, Mr. Mukul Agarwal, Mr. Sharad Maheshwari, Mr. Keki Puranwalla who's here and Mr. K.K. Maheshwari who is also here.
I see the 200 million tons milestone as only a marker and not a destination. With a target of 240 million tons by 2028 at an investment of rupees 16,000 crores already in motion, the path ahead is firmly underway.
India stands at a defining juncture where choices made over the next decade will shape its infrastructure for generations to come. That calls for continuity of purpose and clarity of execution. It is a responsibility we carry with intent and one that we continue to lean into.
Recently, I came across a letter that my great-grandfather wrote to my father in the 1960s. He spoke with great pride about how one of our companies had been permitted to expand capacity from 20,000 to 50,000 tons. It was in its time a very significant step forward. One cannot help but pause and imagine what he would have made of 200 million tons. The scale has changed. However, the sense of purpose has not. And that is perhaps the deepest meaning of scale. Scale is as much about continuity and stewardship for us as it is about size. And ultimately it is a commitment that endures across generations.
And I stand here very conscious of that legacy of my great-grandfather Ghanshyam Das Birla who instilled the belief that corporations must serve a larger cause in society. Of my grandfather Basant Kumar Birla who built with great foresight and discipline. And of my father Aditya Vikram Birla who laid the foundation of this business with conviction. What we see today stands on that foundation and importantly what we build next must be worthy of it.
Thank you very much for being with us this evening and for being our partners in helping us to reach this milestone. Please sit back and enjoy the celebration. Thank you.
