The Ministry of Industries and Production has succeeded in getting the Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC) to reverse a decision taken by the caretaker government to allow the Strategic Plans Division (SPD) to handle the affairs of Heavy Mechanical Complex (HMC), official sources told Business Recorder.
The Ministry of Industries and SPD will now handle the affairs of HMC which has now commenced manufacturing nuclear power plants for meeting the severe energy shortfall. Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission(PAEC) has already selected six sites for installation of additional nuclear power plants (NPPs). These include (1) Qadirabad-Bulloki link canal near Qadirabad headworks; (2) Dera Ghazi Khan canal near Taunsa Barrage; (3) Taunsa-Punjnad canal near Multan; (4) Nara canal near Sukkur; (5) Pat Feeder canal near Guddu; and (6) Kabul river, near Nowshera.
The caretaker Prime Minister in an ECC meeting on March 14, 2008, had decided to place HMC under administrative control of SPD, de-linking it from the Ministry of Industries and Production.
He had also decided that SPD would also propose a new Board of Directors (BoD) to be approved by the Prime Minister, and HMC would continue to provide necessary services to other critical industrial sectors, besides nuclear power plants.
Sources said the Industries Ministry remained silent. However, last month, after consultation with Prime Minister's Advisor on Industries, it floated the proposal of revisiting the caretaker government decision. The ministry said that HMC was set up to manufacture industrial plants for sugar, oil, gas, cement, fertiliser, chemicals and other industries and heavy machinery including construction machinery.
In the recent past, HMC had diversified and started manufacturing machinery and plants for nuclear power plants also. The ministry took the plea that 80 percent of machinery and plants produced by HMC were being supplied to various other industries; and handling of HMC by SPD alone could deprive the industrial sector of its vital support and manufacturing of the much-needed plant, equipment and parts. In addition, as HMC is a sensitive organisation, it may consequently become rather inaccessible to the private sector, the ministry said, according to sources.
The ministry said that the decisions of the caretaker government should be reviewed and previous arrangements, HMC under which the affairs of HMC were being managed, be revived ie HMC should be handled jointly by Industries Ministry and SPD.
Last week, the issue was placed before the ECC meeting, presided over by Finance Minister Naveed Qamar, and the plea of the Industries Ministry was accepted, sources said. They said that HMC had formulated a five-year business plan, according to which the company would make heavy investment in manufacturing of engineering goods to meet local requirements and export to Middle East, African countries, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
According to the up-gradation, the expansion and business plans, the HMC would also manufacture high pressure bagasse-fired boilers in sugar industry for co-generation, fluidised bed coal-fired boilers for industrial use and power generation, coal gasification plants for domestic use, small hydropower plants, thermal power plants, utility and heat recovery boilers, balance of plant equipment and wind power generation equipment.
The entity is also to manufacture oil and gas refining/processing plants, fertiliser plants, equipment, road construction machines, namely vibratory road rollers, asphalt plants, earth-moving machinery, bulldozers, seismic and water drilling rigs and high wear and heat-resistant alloy castings.