Chief minister Mukul Sangma visited the cement plant yesterday and stressed the need of making the company more efficient.
Though the previous government had said the plant would be revamped, fund constraints had delayed its modernisation since 2007.
Moreover, the plant incurs an expenditure of Rs 1 crore per month in terms of salaries to its 600 employees.
The plant has the capacity to produce 500 tonnes of cement per day but production often comes down to 200 tonnes because of frequent breakdown of machine parts.
According to Sangma, the government will ensure that the plant has a better management to its increase productivity.
The chief minister wants the plant to compete with the private cement producers, who are making more profit than the state-owned cement plant. The cement company has urged the government to provide Rs 30 crore to complete the modernisation process, which it began three years ago.
Sangma suggested the need to form an independent evaluation team to find out the technical problems in the plant which at present stand in the way of making the plant profitable.
He said a meeting would be convened soon to form the independent team.
Set up in 1955 for production and marketing of cement, MCCL was the first cement plant in the state supplying cement to Northeast states.
With the setting up of more private cement plants in Meghalaya a few years ago, MCCL faced stiff competition.
The government also faced criticism in the Assembly earlier that it was encouraging private cement plants by offering them subsidies thereby neglecting the MCCL.
In the past, the Sohra circle of Khasi Student’s Union had also threatened to agitate over the delay in the modernisation of the plant.
There are eight private cement plants in the state, which have a total production capacity of 4,890 tonnes per day. The requirement of cement in Meghalaya at present is 1,800 tonnes per day.