Content uploaded by Nitish Kumar Sharma
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Nitish Kumar Sharma on Apr 21, 2021
Content may be subject to copyright.
ACEES-141
National Conference on
Advances in Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences (January 14-15,2021)
J C Bose University of Science & Technology, YMCA, Faridabad
INDIAN STATUS IN ASSESSING THE
CEMENT DUST POLLUTION ON TOP SOIL
WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO KHREW
AREA OF KASHMIR: A REVIEW
Unsa Shabir1, Nitish Kumar Sharma2
1Research Scholar, Department of civil engineering, Chandigarh University, Gharuan, India, 140413
2 Assistant Professor, Department of civil engineering, Chandigarh University, Gharuan, India, 140413
Abstract: Cement dust is known to be one of the key contaminants released from cement manufacturing plants.
During different phases of cement processing, the particulates and dust emitted are likely to have an adverse effect on
the soil. The key components of the substance are calcium silicates, aluminates, and alumino ferrites depending on
the desired concrete properties, other constituents are then added . Soil alkalization and chemical composition
alterations are direct results of the contamination of cement dust. The accumulation of dust from cement factories on
the surface soil, strong and crystalline material shapes that eventually forms a hard thin layer crust on the surface of
soil. The ultimately affects the properties of the soil. In the present study, the source data for centralizing and updating
a revised soil impact of cement dust have been obtained from various papers published between 1976 and 2019. The
present review is to undermine the impact of cement dust on soil using various physico-chemical parameters in India
with special reference to Khrew area of Kashmir.
Keywords: Cement dust, Cement dust pollution, Physico-chemical properties, Cement manufacturing plants.
INTRODUCTION
After china , the Indian cement industry marks the second largest producer of cement in the world which has been
consented to be a hub accounting for about 1.3% of GDP and providing employment to over 0.14 million people.
Through excise and sales taxes, the Indian cement industry is a major contributor to the revenue which is collected by
both the state and central governments. However, the cement industries are considered one of the world’s biggest
polluting industries for the cement, ranking 17 identified by the pollution control board (tripathi and gautam 2007). In
surrounding areas the release of particulate matter is limestone ,gypsum ,limestone, red alluvium in the kiln and coal
in the factory. During different phases of cement processing, particulates and dust released are likely to have adverse
effects on various components of soil (Rafiq et al., 2016). Wind quickly transports and disperses the plant generated
dust and then widely deposits it in the surrounding areas.
Due to its continuous distribution and fall on the land, longterm deposits of dust impart pollutants to soil, plants and
water bodies.The location viability plays the key role in the economics of manufacturing cement. In selected states of
India, the location of reserves of limestone has resulted in its development in the form of clusters. Being a low value
commodity and a high bulk, competition of cement manufacturing is localized due to its transportation cost to far
areas that often result in the uncompetitive product in those areas. In order to meet the demand of cement materials
for the construction purposes, the existing cement factories have been expanded at an alarming rate since the last
decades with an increase in the dust emission from cement plants. India has seven cement clusters in which Satna
cluster located in Madhya Pradesh leads in capacity as well as production followed by Chanderia in South Rajasthan,
Chandrapur in North Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, Nalgonda in Central Andhra Pradesh, Gulbarga in North
Karnataka and East Andhra Pradesh, Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh, Yerraguntla in South Andhra Pradesh and Jawad and
Neemuch in Madhya Pradesh).Jammu and Kashmir is an industrially backward union territory after Uttaranchal and
Himachal Pradesh, has been given tax concessions as the special incentives from Government of India for attracting
investments in the industrial sectors. The sole aim of government is to make Jammu and Kashmir an industrial hub by
higher allocations in cement industrial sector. The union territory of Jammu and Kashmir has extensive and diverse
types of mineral deposits in all its districts. The commercially exploited minerals of the union territory include bauxite,
coal lignite, gypsum and limestone etc.
ACEES-142
National Conference on
Advances in Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences (January 14-15,2021)
J C Bose University of Science & Technology, YMCA, Faridabad
Khrew is a town in the Pulwama district of the Indian Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir andis a notified area c
ommittee .The present review has mainly focused the khrew area which is polluted by cement dust by the cement dust
and located at an altitude of 1607 meters above the sea level at a distance of approximately 23 km in khrew zone. At
latitude 34 ° 1 N and longitude 75 ° 1 'E' within the geographical coordinates. Khrew which is situated at the base of
the mountain has twenty more neighbouring hamlets with the population of 18820. Six cement factories are currently
operating in the area, which has contributed to a lot of pollution in the area, although they are a big sources of jobs for
locals. The first cement factory in the area was built by the Kashmir cement project. JK cement, TCI max, HK cements,
cemtac, ARCO, ICCO, funded by governments, cements are among six cements plants. In the nearby areas these
cement factories have led to a large amount of cement dust (Singh O. et al ., 2019).
In December, 1974, Jammu & Kashmir Cements Ltd. was incorporated as a wholly owned government
corporation. Installation work for a capacity of 600 tonnes per day dry processing plant.
Rotary Horizantaln Kiln, began nearly 23 Kms at khrew in Pulwama- Kashmir district.
(Dar S. et al., 2015). In 1975 and was completed in October, 1981, away from Srinagar. Sandstone (SiO2),
Limestone (CaCO3), bauxite (N2O3), clay and gypsum are the major raw material for cement industry here .The dust
falls on the surrounding fields degrading the quality of the soil.
Table 1. Summary of production capacity tons per day (tpd) by Cement manufacturing plants in Kashmir.
Cement manufacturing plants in Kashmir
Production capacity tons per day (tpd)
Jammu Kashmir (JK) cements Limited, Srinagar.
700 tones per day.
Trumboo Cement Max (TCI) Industries Private
Limited.
1000 tons per day.
Hassan Khati (HK) cements Private Limited.
800 tons per day.
Cemtac cements Private Limited.
600 tons per day.
Abdul rehman and co. (ARCO) cements Private
Limited.
500 tons per day.
ICC cements Private Limited.
600 tons per day.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
The cement industry has been known to play the significant role in the environmental imbalances.
ACEES-143
National Conference on
Advances in Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences (January 14-15,2021)
J C Bose University of Science & Technology, YMCA, Faridabad
Sheikh et al. (1976) studied various soil characteristics in the contaminated and non polluted regions of the factory
locations and reported that the dust reported that the cement had formed the crust 1 cm thick on the soil surface I the
contaminated region
Adak P et al. (2001) has investigated different parameters of five contaminated surface and sub-surface soils which
resulted in the drastic increase in percentage of Al2O3, CaO and MgO and decrease in pH of surface soils as well as
conductivity with disparity in exchangeable Ca2+, Mg2+ and Al3+ with an increase in CEC of the surface soils.
Shanthi et al. (2004) in their study has found are duction in nitrogen fractions like nitrite and nitrate and total nitrogen
content with significant increase in ammonia content of soil in the polluted soil.
Ghadebo and Bankole (2007) found the concentration level of the toxic elements ranged between 40 and 280,000μg
g-1 in the cement dust soil samples indicating the elevation in the concentrations of all the elements.
Rajasubramanian et al. (2011) found the concentration of Iron, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium
prominently higher in the polluted soil.
Amal et al. (2011) shows Increase in pH, calcium carbonate, sulphate electrical conductivity, salinity, total alkalinity
and content of the soil solution were observed due to cement dust accumulation.
Al-Oud et al (2011) reported the increase in the concentration of metals Cd, Cr and Zn on the surface of the soil
relative to sub-soil samples.
Al-Omran et al. (2011)found that the soil samples collected at two depths (0-5 and 20-30 cm), in the vicinity of cement
plant showed heavy metal concentration which indicated the soil samples to be calcareous in nature.
Dar S. et al. (2015) found the decease in a pH, CaCO3, and dust emission with the increase in distance from the cement
factory in kms by estimating the impact of emission particles on the Edaphic factors of soil.
Singh O. et al. 2019 found compared to control sites, the soil pH was slightly alkaline near cement plants, low water
capacity, soil moisture content. Soil organic carbon and nitrogen content.
METHODS OF SOIL ANALYSIS
The effect of cement dust on soil is determined by various physico-chemical parameters such as pH, moisture content,
loss of ignition, conductivity, heavy metal content, organic carbon, organic matter, exchangeable calcium and
magnesium, chloride, exchangeable potassium, sodium, phosphorous, etc. 2 sites were selected as site 1 and site 2.
Site 1 is 0.5 kms from the cement factory and site 2 1 km away from the cement factory. Out of these parameters,
following parameters play a key role in evaluating the effect of the cement dust on soil. Henceforth, the present review
has focused primarily on the parameters given in table 2.
Table 2. Various parameters for analyzing soil quality with the defined methods
Soil analysis Parameter
Proposed Method
Findings
Moisture content
Oven dry method by Michael (1984).
Moisture content Increases with
the increase in the distance from
the cement plant
pH
Electrometric method by Gliessman (2000
pH was found to be slightly
alkaline near the cement plant.
Conductivity
Conductivity method by Gliessman (2000)
Conductivity decreased as we
move away from the cement
plant. It was highest near the
cement plant.
ACEES-144
National Conference on
Advances in Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences (January 14-15,2021)
J C Bose University of Science & Technology, YMCA, Faridabad
Organic carbon
Titration method by Walkley and Black
(1934)
Concentration of organic carbon
were found to gradually increase
in percentage as distance from the
factory increase
Organic matter
%age of estimated organic carbon x 1.724
Organic matter increases with the
increase in distance from the
cement plant.
Calcium magnesium
EDTA (Versanate) method given by
schollenberger and simon (1945)
Values of calcium and
magnesium were decreasing as
we move away from cement
factory.
Nitrogen
Kjeldahl method
Concentration of nitrogen was
found to improve with increasing
distance from the cement plant
Phosphorus
Spectrophotometer
Concentration of phosphorus was
increasing as moving away from
the cement plant.
Potassium
Flame
Concentration of potassium
Decreases with the increase in
distance from cement factory.
CONCLUSION
The current review has mainly focused on the effect of cement dust on soil in India with special reference to Khrew
area of Kashmir. The review concludes the effect of the various cement factories growing in the Khrew area poses
alarming threats to the environment and is responsible for the considerable amount of dust in the soil affecting the
quality of soil and enables the government to take the required mitigation steps necessary to reduce pollution in the
region.
REFERENCES
[1] Al- Oud, S. S., Nadeem, M. E. A., & Al- Shbel , B. H. (2011). Distribution of heavy metals in soils and plants around
a cement factory in Riyadh city, central of Saudi Arabia. American-Eurasian Journal of Agriculture and
Environmental Science, 11(2), 183-191
[2] Al-Omran, A. M., El-Maghraby, S. E., Nadeem, E. A., El-Eter, A. M., & Al-Qahtani, S. M. (2011). Impact of cement
dust on some soil properties around the cement factory in Al-Hasa Oasis, Saudi Arabia. American-Eurasian J Agric
Environ Sci, 11(6), 840-846.
[3] Amal, M. F., & Migahid, M. M. (2011, February). Effect of cement-kiln dust pollution on the vegetation in the
western Mediterranean desert of Egypt. In Proceedings of world academy of science, engineering and
technology (Vol. 81, pp. 28-34).
[4] Dar, S. A., Pal, A., Sharma, A., Dar, Z. A., & Hassan, A. (2015). Impact of Emission Particles on the Edaphic Factors
of Soil in Area around and Inside Cement Industries of Khrew, Kashmir.
[5] Lamare, R. E., & Singh, O. P. (2019). Effect of cement dust on soil physico-chemical properties around cement plants
in Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya. Environmental Engineering Research, 25(3), 409-417
[6] Mehraj, S. S., Bhat, G. A., Balkhi, H. M., & Gul, T. (2013). Health risks for population living in the neighborhood
of a cement factory. African Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, 7(12), 1044-1052.
ACEES-145
National Conference on
Advances in Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences (January 14-15,2021)
J C Bose University of Science & Technology, YMCA, Faridabad
[7] Mehraj, S. S., & Bhat, G. A. (2013). Cement factories, air pollution and consequences. Indian Journal of the
Department of Environmental Science & Centre of research for development. University of Kashmir, Jammu and
Kashmir, 190006, 6-39.
[8] Morghom, L. O., Karid, N. A., Sreiweel, H. A., & Soliman, Y. A. (2000). Effect of volatile cement dust on the soil
properties surrounding the area around cement factories. In 11th international cement conference (Tunis-Hammamet,
13-16 November 2000).
[9] Mandal, A., & Voutchkov, M. (2011). Heavy metals in soils around the cement factory in Rockfort, Kingston,
Jamaica. International Journal of Geosciences, 2(1), 48.
[10] Raajasubramanian, D., Sundaramoorthy, P., Baskaran, L., Ganesh, K. S., Chidambaram, A. A., & Jeganathan, M.
(2011). Cement dust pollution on growth and yield attributes of groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.). International
Multidisciplinary Research Journal, 1(1).
