Indian EPC Companies Execute Multifarious Tasks

Keeping in view the growing population and the consequent need for a robust infrastructure, the Indian government has made massive allocations in various projects and also charted out significant policies to attract investors. In the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012–17) the government had made an outlay worth one trillion (one lakh crore) US dollars to develop the country's roads. The country's roads and bridges infrastructure, which was valued at US$ 6.9 billion in 2009, is expected to touch US$ 19.2 billion by 2017.

Among such projects are development of roads and construction of bridges as well as power stations. Under different programmes like the National Highways Development Project (NHDP) and Special Accelerated Road Development Programme in North East (SARDP-NE), a total of 66,117 km of roads have been planned across the country. It has also set an objective of building 30 km of road a day from 2016 which may total upto 9300 km at the end of the year. 

A good number of these projects will be executed under the EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) model. Incidentally, till June, 2015 about two-thirds of NHDP projects had not yet been awarded, thus offering an apt opportunity for EPC contracting companies in India to come forth as active private players. 23 projects spanning over 4,084 km are being restructured or converted from public-private partnership (PPP) and build-operate-transfer (BOT) modes to EPC to get them going. Of these, five projects have been handed over to the respective state governments. 

A company that is engaged in the design, development, fabrication and execution of infrastructure projects like power stations, ports, steel plants, mining sites etc., on a turnkey basis is considered to be the most ideal EPC contracting firm. This opinion could be attributed to the team of expert engineers, technicians and economists in that organisation. Among such companies, there are some which even undertake relevant primary and secondary assignments associated with these projects. The primary task may be preparation of feasibility studies and reports while the secondary sting could be certain statutory periodical exercises like inspection and audit as well as work study of the operational aspects in a particular project.

For instance, in power segment, thermal power stations have various types of electrical equipment. These are boilers, cables, transmission lines, transformers, switchgears and control gears and rotating machines etc. The boiler’s share is the highest to the extent of 16 per cent while cables account for 15 per cent and transmission lines and conductors share is 12 per cent followed by other items in the overall equipment. Each of these is to be inspected by a certified and designated agency which on some occasions could also be an EPC company.

As for the boiler performance testing in India, rigid norms are followed since it concerns the safety of the workers and also the various systems installed in the plant. Apart from the guidelines prescribed by the Ministry of Power, there is also the SOP issued by the National Safety Council and the Inspector of Boilers covering risk factors. Based on specific parameters, the materials, design and construction and their components of a boiler are tested including NDT (non-destructive testing).