IN TRANSITION

AT A TIME WHEN MANY MIDSIZED INFRA EPC COMPANIES ARE IN A SPOT DUE TO STRETCHED BALANCE SHEETS AND WANT OF FUNDS, KEC INTERNATIONAL HAS BUCKED THE TREND BY CAREFUL SELECTION OF PROJECTS, DIVERSIFICATION INTO NEW BUSINESSES, AND ESCHEWING THE TEMPTATION TO CHASE GROWTH AT ANY COST.

- AVEEK DATTA

DRASS AND KARGIL ARE TWO towns in India’s northernmost Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) whose names are etched in the minds of Indians as the site of the 1999 war that India fought with neighbouring Pakistan. Apart from this distinction, Drass is also the second-coolest inhabited place in the world with the mercury dipping to as low as -49° Celsius in the winters. Situated at an altitude of over 11,500 feet, with a heavy snow cover in the winters, the geopolitically sensitive location is one of the most logistically challenging places in the world to do an infrastructure project in.

But KEC International, the infrastructure engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) arm of the Mumbai-based tyres-to-information technology group RPG Enterprises, was up to the task. Beginning in phases from 2015, Power Grid Corp. of India awarded KEC a project to build four power substations—one each in Drass, Kargil, Khalsti, and Leh (the latter two are now a part of the newly formed Union Territory of Ladakh)—and the Leh-Khalsti power transmission line.

FOR KEC... RETURN ON CAPITAL EMPLOYED IS AS IMPORTANT AS THE SIZE OF THE TENDER RENU BAID, VICE PRESIDENT OF RESEARCH AT IIFL SECURITIES