India’s power push presents openings for M’sian firms

India's growing power generation, transmissions and distribution sector presents many business opportunities and Malaysian companies should use the zero tariff or low tariff rates under the Malaysia-India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement to sell to or source products from there, say industry players.


"India's power sector is growing rapidly and it requires a lot of new generation capacity, equipment, substations, etc, for Malaysian electronic and electrical players to tap. The country can also be a source of supply for many products in the transmission and distribution sector as it has the same standards and power specifications used in Malaysia now," Suresh Kumar Gorasia, managing director of Amalgamated Engineering & Communication Co (KL) Sdn Bhd told The Malaysian Reserve recently.


India is in a hurry to develop its power sector. The country plans to add 82,000MW of installed power by 2017 to meet demand from its booming industrial and urbanising economy.


As it stands, total installed capacity at the end of March 2011 stood at 173,626MW as compared to 132,329MW in 2007. Some 21.17% of current capacity was held by the private sector.


India now has plans to generate up to 35GW of power through renewable energy sources by 2015 that will require some US$55 billion (RM164.77 billion) in investments.


The Indian government is targeting rural electrification of 110,000 villages during the 12th five-year plan (2013-2018). The country has liberalised the sector, allow 100% foreign direct investment in generation and transmission and distribution.


Malaysian companies like Eversendai Corp Bhd and Mudajaya Group Bhd are involved in the development of new generation assets while in the transmission and distribution side, Malaysian suppliers have been importing and using products like switchgears and transformers from the country.


Part of the reason is that India's transmission and distribution sector has kept pace with global technology and industry developments and is now positioning itself as a global hub with its "right technology at the right price" approach.


The country is targeting growing energy markets like Africa, Latin America, Asean, Middle East and the Commonwealth of Independent States via annual exhibitions such as the 10th addition of the International exhibition of electrical and industrial electronic industry or ELECRAMA 2012 that was held in Mumbai in January.


The exhibition, one of the largest of its kind in the world, attracted a large delegation from Africa where the power sector is expanding to meet the growing economies of the continent much like in the case of India.