Chinese workers powering India

Who would have thought a few years ago that there would be a Chinese hand in the development of Indian power sector. This is a reality today.

Not only is Chinese equipment being deployed by quite a few power companies in the country, Chinese manpower from companies such as Dongfang Electric Corporation (DEC), Sichuan Machinery and Equipment Corporation (SCMEC) and Shandong Electric Power Construction Corporation (SEPCO) is employed in large numbers in the country.

"The Chinese know their job well and if they are supplying the equipment, they would rather use their expertise and people to install the equipment," said a senior executive of Adani Power, which is building a 1,320 mw thermal plant at Mundra in Gujarat.

The plant is partially being built by SCMEC, a China-based company, which is setting up the boilers and turbines for the plant.

About 30 engineers and supervisors of SCMEC are currently looking after the project. This number would rise to 100 next month when a boiler and a turbine (of 330 Mw each) would be erected.

"The company wants to get its own people , because they know how to best handle the equipment and can do it faster," added the Adani Power executive.

This also helps the Indian companies tide over the huge crunch in technical manpower in the country for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts and operations and maintenance jobs.

According to Shubhranshu Patnaik, executive director, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the power sector requires a skilled engineering cadre and the Chinese companies are using their own people for deploying the power plant equipment.

Reliance Power, a subsidiary of Reliance Energy which has over 28,000 mw of capacity in the pipeline, is also looking at using Chinese equipment and manpower.

Koreans would also be rubbing shoulders with their Chinese counterparts, as companies such as Doosan have bagged equipment orders from Indian companies.

Since there's already a huge shortage ,they are not eating into anyone's jobs. "It is not as if they are bringing blue-collared labourers to compete with the Indian labourers," said a management expert. They are bringing people at the supervisory and engineering levels.

According to Wen Ya, chief representative of the state-owned power equipment maker DEC, the company only has engineers and supervisors at the plants where it supplies the equipment.

This includes an EPC contract with the West Bengal Power Development Corporation for two plants with capacities of 600mw and 300mw at Sagardighi and Durgapur, respectively.

There are about 500 Chinese engineers, supervisors and project managers working at those sits currently, informs Wen.

DEC is also supplying equipment for the 1,200 Mw Amarkantak thermal project of Lanco Infratech in Madhya Pradesh.

At the moment, there are about 90 DEC personnel on site and the number may rise to 150 when the work is at its peak.

Interestingly, the DEC personnel here are involved with the supervision work only as the execution is being done by Lanco Infratech. DEC would also be doing Lanco's projects at Nagarjuna and Anpara.

Vedanta's 2,400 Mw at Jharsuguda in Orissa, is yet another plants of which EPC contract has been bagged by SEPCO, again a Chinese firm.

The influx of Chinese into the country is despite the challenging environment for them to get a visa.

However, given the language and cultural barriers that the Chinese face when dealing with Indian sub-contractors, some companies are planning to employ more Indian engineers.