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Alstom Projects, the Indian subsidiary of Alstom Power NV that has 66.48 per cent stake in the Indian company, has built up a huge order backlog due to the increasing activities in the power sector in recent times. Currently the company has an order book totalling over Rs 1,400 crore, normally equal to about two years' revenues of the company. The order backlog is the highest ever in the history of the company in the country. Last year, the company received a number of orders including the GVK Phase II 238 MW combined cycle power plant, the PSEB order for R&M of its Bhatinda unit, and an order for supply of electrostatic precipitators to Balco. It also received an order from Goutami Power Project (469 MW) recently. The Indian company will also gain from the parent decision to expand its presence in India. The foreign company regards India as a key market and has also decided to locate some its R&D activities for the entire Alstom group here. The scope of activities includes components manufactured in-house as well as outsourced. In addition to this, the company has decided to turn its Baroda unit into a global engineering and manufacturing centre for hydropower. This unit will also be Alstom's centre in India for the engineering and manufacturing of rotating machines (turbines and generators). The company plans to enhance its boiler engineering and manufacturing capacities and has further finalised plans to make significant investments to enhance its capacities and range of plants manufactured in India. Finally, Alstom is targeting an increase of the local content of its work in India by 100 per cent. By doing so, it plans to strengthen its operations in power generation and consolidate its strong presence in the thermal (coal, gas) and steam segments by focusing on hydel and nuclear projects. The company is also positioning itself to emerge as a hub for providing support for overseas projects. It has recruited around 130 engineers in the current year and plans to recruit another 100 or so by the end of the year to support its initiatives. The foray abroad will be into the industrial sector besides power sector projects. Alstom Projects has three manufacturing units in Baroda, Durgapur and Shahbad, which are being beefed up to achieve the target of 100 per cent localisation.
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