France’s Nuvia is first n-sector support company to make India base

CHENNAI - French nuclear engineering and support services company Nuvia is planning to use India as its third global hub to service the domestic and overseas markets, apart from targeting the joint ventures floated by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL).

“Apart from deploying personnel in Indian projects we will also depute our people overseas. India will be our third base after France and the UK,” Nuvia India Managing Director Kenneth G. Jackson told IANS.

The euro 200 million-revenue Nuvia is an end-to-end engineering services company, starting from the design and engineering stage of an atomic power plant to decommissioning it, is the first nuclear sector services company to set its foot in India.

Nuvia’s Indian subsidiary Nuvia India Pvt Ltd has entered into an equal joint venture with PL Engineering, part of the Punj Lloyd group.

Asked about Nuvia’s investment and planned headcount in India, Jackson said: “Ours is basically a people business. We train people and deploy them on projects. We are yet to finalise the headcount as it would depend on the kind of orders we bag.”

He said Nuvia has around 1,600 persons on its rolls.

What Nuvia and many other companies are salivating at is India’s plans to grow its nuclear power capacity to 63,000 MW by 2032 from the current around 4,500 MW.

India plans to import around 36 reactors from France, the US, Russia and Japan.

According to Jackson, the company’s India strategy is to focus on the nuclear plant joint ventures floated by NPCIL, partnering with other public sector companies like Indian Oil Corporation.

He said the French company Areva, which is planning to sell its reactors to India, is a major customer for Nuvia.

With the nerve centre of Indian nuclear industry located in Mumbai, Jackson said Nuvia India will shortly open its office there.

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians.in)

–Indo Asian News Service