Concerned over lack 6of any concrete action by Chinese power equipment manufacturers regarding setting up of service centres in India to address the problem of repairing the equipments imported from that country, the Government is expected to take up the matter on an urgent basis with Beijing during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to China later this month.
Highly placed sources within the Government told The Pioneer that despite India and China having signed a MoU in October 2013 during former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to the dragon country, to facilitate setting up of service centres in India, nothing at all has happened at the ground level. Not a single service centre has come up as of now and, therefore, it is expected that during Modi’s China visit, the matter is likely to be raised on a priority basis with Beijing so that repair of Chinese equipments can take place within India and that too without incurring major expenses, sources added. Power sector players are fervently hoping that with the NDA Government’s pro-active approach, the matter may get fast-tracked and service centres are set up in the country at the earliest.
The issue also assumes significance due to the fact that domestic power producers have been repeatedly complaining about being bombarded with Chinese equipments, which are eating into the market of Indian products. Moreover in case there are any technical defects reported in Chinese equipments, then this paralyses operations in the power units as owing to lack of any technology sharing agreements between the two countries, domestic entrepreneurs have to rely on Chinese companies to get these rectified.
In such a scenario, the need for setting up service centres within the country to cater to the problem of repairing power equipments imported from China, was raised with the then UPA Government. Subsequently during Manmohan Singh’s Beijing visit in October 2013, both the countries had a MoU to set up Power Equipment Service Centres (PESCs). China’s National Energy Administration had inked the MoU with the Union Power Ministry. It was even ratified by the Union Cabinet.
At that time it was informed that the service centres would be adequately provided with equipment, personnel, spares and other facilities so as to enable them to provide all requisite spars and services support within India. However more than 18 months down the line, not a single centre has come up in the country and with increasing presence of Chinese power equipments, the domestic producers feel hamstrung whenever there are any defects in these machines. Experts from China especially have to be flown in for rectifying defects.