From their descriptions these outlets sound similar to the Home Depot, Lowes kind of stores in the US. Following is an excerpt from a report in Economic Times.

Eyeing the fast growing construction market, leading cement company Ultratech is planning to open 400 new unique retail outlets across the country, including many more in Orissa soon.

…  Ultratech Cement Ltd (UCL), a part of India’s global conglomerate Aditya Birla group, has opened five UBS retail outlets in Orissa’s Bhubaneswar, Puri and Cuttack.

This was the first ever entry of UBS retail outlets in the growing construction markets of Orissa and the company plans to open many more such outlets in the state.

Its 89 existing outlets are currently operational in states like Gujarat, Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra and plans are afoot to add six more states due to the success obtained in the existing ones, according to UCL’s chief marketing officer O P Puranmalka.

As many as 400 such outlets are planned to be opened across the country in 2009 offering a wide spectrum of end-to-end home-building solutions, high quality construction materials and allied value-added services, he said.

Describing UBS as a unique concept, he said in a release it was being launched in a big way in Orissa, a fast growing construction market in the eastern region.

Advocating our ‘plan, build and support’ philosophy, it seeks to enhance the shopping experience of the customers as well as to strengthen existing trade partnership by upgrading the service proposition, he said.

At UBS outlets, visitors can get reputed brands of all construction materials including cement, aggregates, bricks, tiles, sanitary fittings, paints, water-proofing compounds and white cement, the release said.

The outlets also provide value added services including mobile concrete testing vans for conducting quality tests as well as architects, contractors, vaastu consultants and other construction personne.

They have technical teams which train masons and contractors besides offering advice on legal formalities and plan approval procedures.