Helping hand: Indian businessmen call for visa relaxation

LAHORE: 

Indian businessmen have labelled Pakistan a lucrative market for their companies and expressed eagerness to transfer their state of the art technology in energy solutions.

They requested relaxation on the visa issuance process by Pakistan High Commission as delays were stalling prospective joint ventures.

Since the current government clearly articulated their interest in expanding bilateral trade relations with its neighbour, some Indian companies have shown interest to working with Pakistani counterparts to produce and install advanced turbines and boilers in sugar and allied industries.

“We are working with our Pakistani counterparts to provide local industries – especially sugar mills – with technology transfer in shape of power packs, but visa delays often hinder the timely completion of projects”, said Triveni Turbines India Deputy General Manager Sales and Marketing Sanjay Dewan.

Triveni Turbines is providing energy solutions with its Indian counterpart, Cheema Boilers Limited, and a Pakistani firm SK Alliance International. These three companies have installed three power packs and eight turbines in different sugar and paper mills in one year and plan to install another six soon.

These steam turbines are energy efficient and produce 150% more electricity than the turbines already installed in many industries. They generate electricity via bagasse and other biomass fuels like rice husk, barn, corn cobs and coal.

“Since we all are well aware of the relations between both countries, we are training local engineers in Pakistan to take care of technical issues after installations. We step in for the faults only if they are beyond the expertise of local engineers. This way, we are shifting technology and providing employment opportunities to Pakistani engineers,” Dewan added.

“Such power packs or turbines are 30-40% cheaper than European products and the quality of Indian turbines is far better. However, Chinese manufacturers are our biggest competitors,” said SK International Chief Executive Officer Khawaja Khurram Iftikhar.

“For instance, an Indian turbine of 8MW capacity costs $1.2 million whereas the same from Europe would cost $2 million. For a complete power pack, consisting of a turbine and high pressure boiler, the price is 30% less than the power packs manufactured in Pakistan,” said Iftikhar.

“A power pack normally takes 18 months to install. A few Pakistani companies are producing these power packs but their production capacity is one or two a year, whereas our joint venture can produce around 4 packs annually,” he added.

An exhibition organised by Pakistan Society of Sugar Technologies was held in Lahore, where local firms along with  foreign companies from India, Europe, US and China displayed their energy efficient and technology-related products.