Hyderabad
2 Sept 2010:
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday laid the foundation stone for the
much-awaited Rs 6,000 crore power plant manufacturing project at Mannavaram,
near Tirupati . Once completed by the year 2014-15, the Bhel-NTPC joint venture
project will manufacture power plant equipment and would have capabilities to
produce equipment required for generation of 5,000 mw power annually.
For
this, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (Bhel) and National Thermal Power Plant
(NTPC) have joined hands to set up a joint venture company to carry out
engineering-procurement-construction (EPC) contracts for power plants and other
infrastructure projects as well as manufacture and supply of equipment in India
and abroad. The company in which both BHEL and NTPC would have 50% share each
will be called ‘NTPC-Bhel Power Projects Pvt Ltd’.
The
project is expected to create 6,000 direct jobs and 25,000 indirect employment
opportunities by the time of its completion and will also spur development in
this backward region of the state. The NTPC-Bhel joint venture company will
carry out engineering, procurement, erection, commissioning etc, for power
plants as well as infrastructure projects. Further, the project will
enable setting up of more than 400 ancillary units.

Incidentally,
Mannavaram will be the largest public sector investment project in the state
after the Vizag Steel plant which started in 1979. Stressing the importance of
power in the country’s accelerated economic growth, Dr Singh said that his
government had drawn up ambitious plans to ramp up power generation in the
country during the 11th and 12th plan. Speaking on the same occasion, power
minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said the project would focus on ‘balance of power
plant’ equipment in the first phase which would be completed in 2012, before
graduating to the production of turbines and boilers by 2014-15. Source: The
Financial Express 2/9/10