French firm DCNS sees 4,000 jobs under 'Make in India' initiative

NEW DELHI: Over 4,000 jobs are likely to be created locally over the next five years with French company DCNS looking to source key components for its global ocean thermal projects under the Make-in-India initiative, a top official has told ET.

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DCNS, which is currently executing the Scorpene submarine contract with the first boat likely to be commissioned in October, is now focusing on India for its future Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion ( OTEC) projects that generate energy by exploiting the difference in temperature on the Ocean surface with waters deep below.

“Building up on our defence ecosystem, a future OTEC project could have local content of more than 60% of order values - key systems like platform, heat exchangers and pumps being manufactured by Indian MSMEs. This will possibly create as many as 4,000 jobs locally over a span of 4-5 years under Make in India,” Bernard Buisson, Managing Director of DCNS India said.

The Indian Navy too is planning to set up an OTEC plant on the Andaman islands off Port Blair. Navy Chief Admiral RK Dhowan has told ET that a pilot project for the plant which generates clean energy to take off the dependence on diesel generators currently being used is under progress.

The Naval project, as well as other global projects that DCNS is executing could put Indian companies on the global supply chain for this future renewable energy product. Sources have told ET that at present, the French company is in talks with companies such as Kirloskar (for pumps), Godrej, Walchandnagar Industries Limited and Flash Forge for manufacturing critical parts for the projects in India.

Indian companies could manufacturing several key components like heat exchangers and pumps to draw water from a depth of over 1000 meters.

These could be made in India through technology transfer and even a joint design project.