Harsha Exito, a part of the Harsha Group in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), will soon start construction of its Rs 2,100-crore facility in State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu (SIPCOT) Industrial Park at Thervoy Kandigai, Gummidipoondi, according to a senior State Government official.

The company will manufacture heavy engineering equipment in the facility for the oil and gas, sugar, cement, steel plant and material handling industries.

In 2009 the company signed an agreement with the State Government to start the facility at Sipcot's Pillaipakkam industrial park in Irungattukottai near Sriperumbudur at cost of Rs 1,500 crore.

However, the agreement was revised and the facility will now come up in Thervoy Kandigai, according to Mr M. Velmurugan, Executive Vice-Chairman, Guidance Bureau, Industries Department, Government of Tamil Nadu.

Sipcot has allotted 100 acres to Harsha Group in Thervoy Kandigai industrial park, located nearly 60 km north of Chennai. The facility will be spread over an area of 102,000 sq m. It will comprise 35,000 sq. ft of office space to house the engineering, design, administration and HR and finance departments.

The manufacturing area in phase one will include a shop floor of 40,000 sq ft to manufacture heavy engineering equipment fully equipped with quality control labs and pilot test areas, according to information available on the company's Web site. When fully operational, the facility can employ around 1,000 people, said Mr Velmurugan.

The Harsha Group, a diversified entity promoted by Non-Resident Indians in the UAE, operates five companies under two lines of business – mechanical division comprising manufacturing and services and civil division comprising construction, landscaping and interiors.

The group started its operations in 1987 from India and moved to the UAE in 2002.

Recently the group divested 55 per cent of its stake in its mechanical division to ‘ALSA Group', a leading engineering and contracting company in the oil and gas sector in Abu Dhabi.

With India becoming one of the fastest growing economies, the Group decided to re-enter the Indian market with Harsha Exito Engineering Private Ltd carrying out its Indian operations, the group's Web site says.