Russian conglomerate Sistema is exploring opportunities for setting up power plants and tapping the budding retail sector in India and is ready to invest up to Rs 5,280 crore ($1 billion) in such ventures.
"We are looking at a couple of opportunities in India to build power plants," Mikhail Shamolin, CEO of Sistema JSFC told a group of visiting journalists here. He said the group was also keen to invest in coal mines globally, like Malaysia and Indonesia, to bring coal to India for the power plants it plans to build.
"We do not have any specific investment figures but we would be comfortable with up to $1billion of our own," Shamolin said.
The energy sector is of particular interest to Sistema, as it has tremendous potential and India's rapid economic growth was expected to increase power needs significantly.
"We want to increase investments in India in different fields... We believe Indian market is our future," Vladimir Evtushenkov, Chairman, JSFC Sistema, said.
Asked about expectations from the government, he said India needed to take particular steps to promote foreign investments and tell businesses in clear terms of the policy developments for at least the next five years.
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Another area of interest for Sistema is applications of satellite-based navigation technologies based on the GLONASS constellation of satellites launched by the Russian Space Agency —Roskosmos. GLONASS is a high-end defence industry technology which is now being adopted for the civilian sector. It is pitched as an alternative to the Global Positioning System of the US.
Sistema has launched a joint venture with Roskosmos -- NIS-GLONASS -- to adopt the navigation system for enhancement of transportation safety.
GLONASS equipment has been installed in more than 20,000 passenger vehicles, 15,000 police cars and 1,500 ambulances for efficient management of their services.
Recently, all the public transport buses in Moscow were fitted with satellite navigation equipment which is helping authorities to deploy the fleet to clear passenger traffic effectively.
"We are studying the Indian markets particularly Delhi and Mumbai for implementation of such systems," said an official of NIS-GLONASS, the national navigation service provider.
The GLONASS constellation is also being used for accident emergency response project launched this year.
In three years, the system is expected to cover the country's entire territory.