Reliance power plant creates jobs for Barack Obama

Samalkot (Andhra Pradesh) : Anil Ambani paid a visit to his company?s Samalkot power plant on Saturday after President Barack Obama, a day before, raved about the venture which is set to create about 1,600 jobs in the United States.

The employment bounty comes in the wake of a Rs 3,500 crore-deal signed between Ambani?s Reliance Power with America?s General Electric (GE) which will supply advanced gas turbines to the 2400 megawatt facility.

The deal was signed in Mumbai during Obama?s India trip in November.

On Friday at a GE factory in New York, Obama made sure his voters got the message that he was indeed working on his promise of creating jobs through his new policy of driving up exports aggressively.

“Part of the reason I wanted to come to this plant is because this plant is what that (India) trip was all about,” he said.

“As part of the deal we struck in India, GE is going to sell advanced turbines ? the ones you guys make ? to generate power at a plant in Samalkot, India,” he added.

The Samalkot agreement was among the USD 10 billion-export deals translating to about 50,000 U.S. jobs that were inked by Obama and company during that November visit.

“Most of you hadn’t heard of Samalkot, but now you need to know about it, because you’re going to be selling to Samalkot, India,? he said on Friday at the factory.

“And that new business halfway around the world is going to help support more than 1,200 manufacturing jobs and more than 400 engineering jobs right here in this community ? because of that sale,” Obama said.

This was why promoting exports is such an important thing for America?s recuperating economy, he said, adding that his government was on track to double U.S. exports within five years.

?We’re already up 18 per cent and we’re just going to keep on going, because we’re going to sell more and more stuff all around the world,” he said.

“Folks were selling a lot to us from all over the world. We’ve got to reverse that. We want an economy that’s fuelled by what we invent and what we build. We’re going back to Thomas Edison’s principles. We’re going to build stuff and invent stuff,” Obama said.

In Samalkot on Saturday, Ambani addressed the Reliance Power team stations at the site where the construction on the Rs 10,000 crore-plant is progressing rapidly, officials said.

The facility is expected to be functional by the year?s end.