With more Japanese investors considering substantial investment in Tamil Nadu, the State Government would take steps to expedite the Ennore-Manali Road Improvement Project, the Chief Minister, Ms J. Jayalalithaa, announced on Sunday.
Promising that her Government would extend its support to attract more Japanese investments, both in manufacturing and infrastructure, she pointed out that of the 1,422 Japanese companies having operational bases in India, 286 are located in Tamil Nadu with Chennai having 20 per cent of them.
Inaugurating the Toshiba JSW Supercritical Technology-based turbine and generator manufacturing facility at Manali, she expressed happiness that the facility would help reduce coal requirement for electricity generation.
“India is currently facing a problem of inadequate domestic manufacturing capacity for super critical turbines and shortage of power equipment, thereby delaying the implementation of power projects. Given this context, the plant of Toshiba JSW assumes considerable importance,” she added.
Investment potential
Tamil Nadu has been identified as one of the States with the most potential for Japanese investments. Hence, a bilateral economic co-operation agreement had been signed to foster the economic relationship between Tamil Nadu and Japan. Besides, the Japanese External Trade Organisation had signed an economic co-operation MoU with the State Guidance Bureau, she said.
Plant capacity
Mr Itaru Ishibashi, Managing Director of the company, said the plant would manufacture steam turbines and generators for leading edge thermal power plants in generating capacities ranging from 600 MW to 1,000 MW. The plant would have an annual production capacity of 3,000 MW by the end of 2012 financial year. Over the next three years, the workforce would be increased from about 200 to 500.
Toshiba has so far invested Rs 650 crore in the project. It has committed to investing Rs 800 crore by 2014, but Mr Ishibashi said that the figure could go up to Rs 1,000 crore.
Mr Norio Sasaki, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation, said that this would become an essential hub to sustain the long-term growth of the company's thermal power plant system business.
Long-term vision
Mr Sajjan Jindal, CMD, JSW Energy Ltd, said establishing this power equipment manufacturing facility in India was in line with “our long-term vision to be present in the entire value chain of power business, from equipment manufacturing, generation, transmission, power trading and distribution.”
Later talking to reporters, Mr Ishibashi said initially the production of this plant would be shipped to customers in India and the subsequent output would be exported to South-East Asia and West Asia. Indian power generation equipment was expected to record a demand growth of more than 16,000 MW a year in the decade from 2007 to 2017.
Coal-fired thermal power plants would account for over 60 per cent of this projected capacity growth. Besides, the global market was also expected to see continued growth in demand for thermal power generation equipment in growing markets, to about 84,000 MW a year by 2020.