1) Respected Smt. Ambika Soni Ji, Hon’ble Union Minister for Information & Broadcasting,

2) Respected Shri Ashwani Kumar Ji, Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Science & Technology, Planning & Parliamentary Affairs and Earth Sciences,

3) Madam Dominique Muilo, President & CEO, ONET Technologies,

4) Mr. Emmanuel Costa, Director International Operations, ONET Technologies,

5) Excellencies of French Embassy in India Mr. Eric Sayettat, Economic Advisor & Mr. Sunil Felix, Counsellor, Nuclear Technologies,

6) Distinguished Guests,


My dear Friends, Prime Group Family Members, Ladies & Gentlemen,

A very good evening and a very hearty welcome to each one of you.

It’s indeed a land mark day for the Prime Group today !
It makes me feel really proud and extremely happy as I stand here before you all, to announce the signing of the Joint Venture between PCI Ltd., the flagship company of the Prime Group and ONET Technologies, a part of the 2.0 Billion Dollars ONET Group of France.

First and foremost, I have great pleasure in extending my heartiest and a very warm welcome to Madam Dominique Mouillot, the dynamic President & CEO of ONET Technologies and to your very able International Operations Director Mr. Emmanuel Costa, to India and to the Prime Group family for this joint venture which has been formed with the sole intent to serve this Great country through your advanced technologies and services, built over with your vast experience and R&D, done by your company in this specialised field of Nuclear energy services for the last over 30 years.

Madam, we are indeed proud and extremely delighted to have ONET Group as our JV Partner, giving us this huge opportunity to provide technology based support and contribution to the Nuclear industry in our country and I am here to assure you on my own behalf and on behalf of the Prime Group, to extend our fullest support to this JV, so as to provide a meaningful support to this very important sector of the rapidly growing, energy starved, or let me say on a positive note, energy hungry economy of our country.

Helping achieve further efficiency and high degree of safety & security through technology based solutions and through use of robotics for maintenance and even remote maintenance of existing and upcoming nuclear installations, is going to be the starting point of this JV and as such, this JV in true sense, is in the direction of supporting the Nuclear Industry in India, to be more efficient and more safer than ever before and therefore, in a way, it is truly, an answer to what the whole world witnessed recently, as a dreadful experience in Japan.

To achieve it's objectives, this JV will be using the Know-how, experience & expertise, specialised equipments, componentary and training etc from ONET Technologies and all this coupled with Prime Group's local infrastructure, engineering facilities, existing as well as those under implementation, business development expertise and the technical man power resources who will be duly trained by ONET experts with specifics to this field, and all this provides a strong base and absolute synergy between ONET Group and the Prime Group to make this JV, extremely viable and highly useful vehicle to make a valuable contribution to the Indian Nuclear Industry, on a long term and sustainable basis.

We all know that Indian Nuclear scientists are second to none in the world and joining hands with such world class and highly qualified and experienced Indian scientists & engineers, ONET Technologies through this JV, intends to further add to their skills in terms of efficiency, safety and security etc. through advanced technological skills of ONET specialists, thus making 1 + 1 as truly 11. And this is precisely what has really motivated me personally to enter into this JV.

Of course, there are a couple of other motivations too, like, firstly my fascination and my passion for technology based solutions and businesses; secondly, the undisputed French supremacy in the field of Nuclear Services Technology with the second largest installed capacity for Nuclear power generation in the world; and last but not the least, the French Government’s open and strong support for India’s Nuclear programme when most of the other nuclear nations were against us and even sanctions were imposed on our country and that was a strong impression on my mind at that point of time and I had felt that France will always be a strong supporter of India in this field, come what may.

With that background in mind and to work now with ONET Technologies, a French major who are undoubtedly one of the most reputed company in this field in their country as well as globally, surely gives me an extra confidence to enter this business with a long term plan in mind.

We are indeed honoured and blessed to announce this JV in the August presence of Respected Smt. Ambika Soni Ji, Shri J.D. Seelam Ji, M.P. and Member of Standing Committee of Parliament on Energy and all our very distinguished guests who have come here more as personal friends and well wishers, to extend their good wishes and blessings, and we are extremely grateful and honoured to have your kind presence here today, which is truly overwhelming and I on my own behalf and on behalf of my family and all my colleagues at the Prime Group, extend our grateful thanks to each one of you.

Your being here today means a lot to me personally and I am deeply touched by your presence which gives us an opportunity to share with you all, this important moment to announce and celebrate this JV together.

Our joy to have you all and the signing of this important JV is all the more significant and multiplied manifold since it comes in the Silver Jubilee year of the Prime Group. 25 years ago when I founded the Prime Group, from the very beginning I had a flair for technology and for technology based solutions and I strongly believed that it is only through this route of technology based solutions for the core sectors of our economy, that our group can one day grow to some respectable heights and attain some visibility and some recognition. And surely, that would also give us the extra satisfaction of having done our bit for our country too.

Today, with over 1500 professional grade employees including over 500 Engineers and Technicians, 70 offices across the country and abroad including four foreign subsidiaries, we are totally focused in technology based businesses in collaborations and in tie-ups with world leaders in their respective fields, be it in the field of power & energy, power conditioning, electronic production line machines, precision engineering, machine tools, power plant equipment manufacturing for EHV power transformers and manufacture of critical parts for large steam turbines, as also in the field of aviation, aerospace and software development amongst others.

While we have been providing technical equipment and technology based solutions to the entire spectrum of Power sector in the country, be it thermal, hydro or renewable energies including power generation through resources like wind & solar, we have today completed our journey when we inked this JV for technology based services and support for the Nuclear energy segment, the only missing energy source in our range of products and activities that we serve, particularly when it comes to power.

To share with you all, this JV would cover all vital areas of Nuclear industry and very comprehensively, like design & engineering, maintenance, safety & security, waste management and de-commissioning, plant management & operation and providing comprehensive services and equipment, components etc. for refurbishment or playing a significant role in setting up of new capacities and also for providing tailor made solutions to handle and solve specific and typical problems that face the Nuclear Industry in our country from time to time, today or at any time in future. Incidentally, this JV with ONET Technologies is the 6th JV in the Prime Group.

The first one was Endolite India Ltd. which was in the social sector and was entered into in the year 1995 i.e. 16 years ago, with Blatchfords of U.K. in the field of high technology prosthetics and this was as a part of our Corporate Social Responsibility towards the society. This unit has since grown to over 36 centres and sub-centres across the length and breadth of the country with over 200 employees and has served several thousands of amputees to make a meaningful change in their lives.

The second JV is with a Russian business house Kaliberg and is in the field of EHV Power Transformer to manufacture up to 500 KV class of Transformers in the first phase which is scheduled for commissioning in about three months time, located very close to Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, entailing an initial investment of about Rs.200 crores in the first phase.

The third JV was entered into last year with our 15 years old Associate Riello Group of Italy, the 4th largest manufacturer in the world in the field of UPS Systems, in which field this JV Company of ours is currently ranked as the 3rd in the country in terms of market share in the high capacity UPS Systems segment.

The fourth JV for a high-end engineering unit, coming up at Nellore in A.P for manufacture of turbine parts, oil well drilling bits and heavy fabrication parts particularly for power plants, is again with the same Russian business house Kaliberg, with whom we already had an earlier JV for Transformer manufacturing and this engineering unit is scheduled to be commissioned by end of this year. This state-of-the-art unit together with another Investment casting cum engineering unit coming up at Bawal in Haryana, are being set up with an initial investment of Rs.134 crores, and in the first phase, all these engineering facilities of the Prime Group are going to act as a powerful catalyst between ONET Technologies and PCI, for providing engineering based support and componentary for the JV requirements, based on technological support and training from ONET Group, so as to effectively support the customer base of this JV in our market.

The fifth JV was recently signed with an Israel based company A.A.S Hivut Ltd. in the field of Defence, for manufacture of wire harness system with initial focus on aviation and aerospace segments, to tap the huge Defence off set business opportunities that exists in our country today.

And the sixth one, as we all know by now, is the one with ONET Technologies which we signed earlier in the day today and through this JV, we look forward to making our significant, yet humble contributions to the Nuclear energy program of our country for which the Govt. of India is deeply committed to, and in fact, we are grateful to the country and to the Govt., to have provided us with the platform and the opportunity through this civilian Nuclear programme, to serve our country in this vital field of Nuclear energy as a private company, and in the process, to contribute our bit to make the present as well as future Nuclear plants in the country to work more efficiently, safely and securely and we shall to do our best through this JV, to make our meaningful contribution to the ongoing, much broader effort being undertaken at National level, to ensure that Japan is not repeated in India.

With these words, once again I extend my heartiest and warm welcome to Madam Dominique Mouillot and to The ONET Group, to India, and to this Joint venture with PCI, and my sincere thanks to each one of you, and in particular to the honourable Ministers of the Government of India Respected Smt. Ambika Soni & Shri Ashwani Kumar Ji who have very kindly graced this occasion and given us the encouragement to do more and more for our country in this field. We are also thankful to all the dignitaries and all our dear friends, for your kind and gracious presence here today, to make this day, truly a memorable day for us, in many more ways than one.

Thank you.

And May I now take the pleasure of formally introducing Madam Dominique Mouillot to you all and invite here to say a few words.

Madam Mouillot please

Thank you