Walchandnagar Industries to revive Russian joint venture plan

GK Pillai, Managing Director and CEO of Walchandnagar Industries Ltd, had been waiting with bated breath for the outcome of the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to India.

Now that Russia has said it would build 10 more nuclear plants for India, Pillai is breathing easy.

Walchandnagar Industries (WIL) will now revive a four-year-old plan to set up a joint venture with the Russian Atomenergomash (AEM) to make a variety of products for nuclear plants.

An MoU with AEM was signed in 2010 when experts were predicting a ‘nuclear renaissance’ in Asia. WIL bought lands at Dahej, Gujarat, to set up a manufacturing facility and began talks with AEM over shareholding. Then Fukushima happened.

The disaster at the Japanese nuclear power plant in March 2011 (which killed nobody, though) caused many companies, including WIL, to shelve their nuclear plans.

And now, Putin’s visit has raised hopes and Pillai intends to go to Moscow soon.

WIL, Pillai says, is no stranger to the nuclear industry.

The company has supplied 15 Calandrias (the cylindrical reactor vessels that houses tubes bearing nuclear fuel) to the Nuclear Power Corporation of India. It has made for NPCIL’s plants products such as ‘end shields’ and heat exchangers.

Now, it is also making pipes through which the coolant liquid sodium will flow, to the 500 MW Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor that is coming up at Kalpakkam near Chennai.

The JV with AEM would enable WIL make more nuclear products and also open up overseas markets, Pillai said. Of course, details such as investments are yet to be re-thought. The ‘original investment plan’, Pillai said, was about ₹700 crore. The Russians, he said, were open to any combination of shareholding.

At Dahej, WIL owns a 58-acre piece of land and Pillai expects it to become some sort of a ‘Walchandnagar complex’, housing several manufacturing facilities, not just the JV with AEM.

He is thinking of moving the company’s gearbox manufacturing to Dahej and there could be a partner for the gears business too.

The problem with being at the laid-back Walchandnagar is securing skilled manpower, particularly, the welders.

Relocating to Dahej will help WIL overcome this problem, he said.