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