India: Lafarge India has appointed Ujjwal Batria as CEO of the company effective from 22 June 2015. Batria will take over the responsibility from Martin Kriegner, who has been named as area manager for Central Europe of LafargeHolcim.

The development comes shortly before the expected completion of the LafargeHolcim merger. The Indian Competition Commission of India (CCI) has already approved the Indian leg of the proposed merger, with certain provisions, including divestment of two cement plants; Lafarge's plants at Jojobera, Jharkhand and Sonadih, Chhattisgarh. The two plants have a combined capacity of 5.15Mt/yr. Holcim's business in India is run through ACC and Ambuja Cements. It is not clear what Batria's role will be in the merged LafargeHolcim entity. Since ACC and Ambuja Cements are public listed firms, Lafarge's Indian unit may continue to operate separately, at least to begin with.

Prior to his appointment as CEO of Lafarge India, Batria was managing director of the company and was managing its cement business. He has been with Lafarge for 16 years. He had joined the company in 1999 and has served on different position across functions since then.