Bhopal: The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group is setting up a cement unit in Madhya Pradesh for which 1,306 acres of land has been allotted by the state government in Satna, some 375 km from here.

Madhya Pradesh Industry Minister Jayant Malaiya informed the state assembly Tuesday that apart from providing land at Raghuraj Nagar in Satna district, the group has also been given the prospecting license for the unit.

"The cement unit is a logical extension of our proposed thermal power project in the state. We will be using the fly ash generated by the thermal power plant for the cement unit," a spokesperson for the company told IANS.

Besides coal, limestone and fly-ash are the main inputs for a cement unit.

The group has proposed an investment of an around Rs.500 billion ($12.5 billion) in the state for three projects and chairman Anil Ambani had recently met with Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in this regard.

The three projects are the 4,000 MW Sasan ultra mega power project, the Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology in capital Bhopal and the 20 million cement unit.

The state government has already granted 125 acres for the Bhopal institute.