Tata: India Inc may miss N-pie

Mumbai, Sept. 10: The much-talked about nuclear power projects may not be open to private players as the Government would have to first formulate policies for the sector, Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata said on Wednesday.

"The Government will have to create some policies and nuclear power projects may not be open to the private sector," he told shareholders at Tata Power’s annual general meeting.

It is too premature to comment on the issue, he said.

"However, it will provide a big opportunity for us. It will provide a great opportunity for Tata consulting engineers to be involved in the supply of equipment and technology to nuclear plants," Mr Tata said.

Tata’s comments came after the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) decided to end more than three decades of nuclear isolation for India a few days ago.

India’s three biggest industry bodies—the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Confederation of Indian Industry—are pushing the Government to make amendments to existing law to let the companies get a share of the nuclear pie. — PTI

The Government, though, has put such hopes on hold with cabinet minister Jairam Ramesh declaring that there was "no hurry" to let private players into nuclear power projects. — PTI

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N-deal to hike power capacity

BY OUR CORRESPONDENT

Chennai

Sept. 10: Though the positives from the NSG waiver are likely to take some time to trickle in, Bharat Heavy Electrical Ltd (BHEL) and Larsen and Toubro (L&T) stand to gain the most.

BHEL is the leading supplier of steam turbine generators to NPCIL for its nuclear power plants. L&T is a leading contractor and supplier of critical equipment for nuclear power plants in India.

"The initial positive could be in the form of higher nuclear fuel availability and hence, existing nuclear power plants could operate at higher capacities. Over the long term, we expect power equipment suppliers and contracts to benefit from the increased visibility in the nuclear power space," said an analyst from Edelweiss Research.

The analyst also said that currently, India has a nuclear capacity of four GW across fifteen nuclear power plants; additional eight nuclear power plants are under construction.

India is targeting 3.3 GW of additional nuclear capacity in the Eleventh Five Year Plan period, 20 gigawatts by 2020, and 68 GW by 2030.