It has been over two weeks since cement agents of Gelephu in Sarpang have been grappling with a shortage of cement. This, according to the agents is due to limited supply from local factories. There are about nine cement agents in the district. Meanwhile, the shortage is a result of cement factories in the country temporarily halting supply for maintenance.
Most cement stockyards are empty these days. Cement agents say cement factories have halted their regular supply.
Meanwhile, the cement factories have been ensuring delivery of limited stock every four to five days.
However, according to cement agents, the limited stock gets exhausted within hours due to the ongoing construction of both commercial buildings and government projects in the district.
“There is a shortage of cement supply from the factories. It has been about 10 to 11 days since Dungsam last supplied us. Lhaki had a similar issue earlier, but it has been four to five days since we started receiving cement from them,” said Chencho Nidup, Karma Cement Agent.
“We ran out of cement stock on the 4th of this month. While we did receive consignments in between, we had to equally distribute them among our customers. We started receiving the supply in between 10 to 15 days,” said Kencho Lham, Sonam Cement Agent.
According to officials from the Penden Regional Cement Depot office in Gelephu, they carry out their annual factory maintenance at this time of the year due to which they halted supply. However, Penden Cement will resume supply within this week.
Likewise, Dungsam Cement and Lhaki Cement agents in Gelephu said due to annual factory maintenance, they too had to stop regular supply. While Lhaki resumed cement supply a few days ago, Dungsam Cement is expected to resume supply at the end of this month.
Karma Wangdi, Sarpang
Edited by Sonam Pem
