Indian prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Wednesday laid the foundation stone for INR 6,000 crore power plant manufacturing project at Mannavaram near Tirupati.

Once completed by the year 2014-15, the BHEL NTPC 50:50 JV project, named NTPC BHEL Power Projects Pvt Ltd, will manufacture power plant equipment and would have capabilities to produce equipment required for generation of 5,000 MW power annually.

The JV will carry out engineering, procurement, erection, commissioning etc, for power plants as well as infrastructure projects. Further, the project will enable setting up of more than 400 ancillary units.