HEAVY MANUFACTURING FACILITIES OF PAKISTAN ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION

Abstract

The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission started operation of the first nuclear power plant of the country at Karachi in 1971. The Indian nuclear explosion in 1974 forced the PAEC authorities to strengthen its efforts for indigenous manufacture of spare parts, components and equipment. Scientific and Engineering Services Directorate (SES) was established at Islamabad in 1984 with a mandate to establish infrastructure facilities in design and engineering, fabrication and welding, machining, testing, quality assurance and control, and non-destructive testing to gear up the indigenous manufacturing of mechanical equipment and parts. The SES conceived and constructed two major infra-structure projects, namely, Seamless Tube Plant (STP) at Kundian and Nuclear Equipment Workshop (NEW) Project. The NEW Project comprises The Pakistan Welding Institute (PWI), Islamabad; National Centre for Non-Destructive Testing (NCNDT), Islamabad; Design and Development Division, Islamabad; NEW-II, Karachi, and NEW-III Project, Taxila. The NEW-III Project was primarily planned to produce unique heavy equipment, sophisticated components and complex parts for nuclear set-ups of the PAEC. It was named as Heavy Mechanical Complex-3 (HMC-3) after entering into a Joint Venture Agreement with the State Engineering Corporation, Islamabad. HMC-3 is one of the largest projects in the heavy engineering sector of Pakistan. It can produce a single-piece job weighing up to 320 tons with the existing facilities. Only HMC-3 caters to the national requirements for producing most of the precision and hi-tech components, and heavy and large equipment.