That China is a difficult neighbor, at best, is no news. While India has already fought a war with the red kingdom, tensions remain high, and skirmishes threaten to breakout every once in a while. This, however, has not stopped Chinese companies from bidding for, and successfully winning, a number of contracts for the supply of power generating equipment to Indian utilities, both, private and public. This fiscal, Chinese firms, like Dongfang Electric, Shanghai Electric and SEPCO, are poised to commission around 4000 MW of new units. Concerns of impending hostilities remain, however. In a scenario where another war breaks out, the fear is that, if China is allowed free access to the Indian power sector, India may well be saddled with a slew of power generation machinery with no support from manufacturers. On the other hand, there is no denying the fact that Chinese equipment is cheap. A recent CERC study reveals that Chinese power plants can be set up at a 15% lower cost than those supplied by Indian manufacturers. Counting on Chinese suppliers, Reliance has been able to quote an extremely low tariff of Rs 1.6 from its Sasan UMPP. Barring the Chinese would imply higher power prices for consumers. Additionally, under WTO regulations, it is not possible for India to impose a quantitative restriction on such imports from China without attracting stringent penalties and retaliation from member countries. Thus, occassionally, the government comes up with innovative ways to create hurdles in the path of the Chinese companies. What is your take on the issue?
Raj Arora
31 March 42775 (12:17 AM)
China has nothing but hostilities for India. No Chinese company should be allowed to profit from the country's power sector.
D Anitha, Hyderabad
04 October 42784 (10:45 AM)
Its a blessing in disguise for India provided our government shed its lethargy and give the much needed boost to the power equipment manufacturing industry. Its time for the government to do whatever it takes to encourage public and private sector companies to set-up and enhance their existing manufacturing capacity so as to beat the Chinese vendors both in terms of quantity and quality.
V K Patel, LA
17 January 42785 (02:05 PM)
Indian industry is bound to rely on the cheap Chinese equipment, as our government has, so far, failed to develop the infrastructure needed for the manufacturing of equipment matching the country’s ambitious capacity expansion programmes.
We are left with no alternative, but to source equipment for our power plants from vendors like, Dongfang Electric, Shanghai Electric and SEPCO, as we have lined up a slew of power projects for commissioning during the next Five Year Plan.
We are good planners, no doubt, but what we need to be is more realistic in setting targets.
