At a time when infrastructure projects across the country are slowing down, engineering and construction major L&T has announced plans to create 10,000 new jobs in core-engineering in the next two years.

Half of these will be in Gujarat, where the company is committed invest Rs 4,500 crore. In fact, three of its 16 companies will be headquartered in Vadodara and include those related to power, oil and gas, and e-engineering.

“We are setting up manufacturing plants at Hazira and Vadodara. We will require around 5,000 engineers to work in Gujarat,” said L&T Chairman and MD A M Naik. He was in Vadodara to inaugurate the L&T Knowledge City today.

The major part of this investment will go to Hazira in Surat where L&T is planning power and manufacturing plants, and in Vadodara, which the company feels will be one of the largest core-engineering hubs in India by 2020. Vadodara is home to global engineering giants like ABB, Alstom, Bombardier, and Siemens.

Most of these power and transportation majors have made Vadodara a global source base for components, design engineering and software development. Besides, the easy availability of human resource, road and rail connectivity and proximity to Mumbai makes it an ideal destination.

L&T has a long association with Vadodara. L&T Chiyoda was set up in 1994 to provide international grade engineering and project management services with integrated engineering concepts in Vadodara.

L&T plans beat meltdown

To fight the meltdown, L&T has diversified into other business.

A M Naik said: “To cope up with the situation, we have taken up three new activities; railways, shipping and nuclear power plants.”

He said these are unprecedented, trying and testing times, but L&T will be less affected compared to other companies.

“Railway is doing well because of freight. Metro rails are also being planned. We are expecting domestic nuclear power plant projects to come to us. The company is also doing a cross-country pipeline projects in India and the Gulf,” he said.