Company officials refused to disclose the value of the contract, but said the order was awarded last month to Hyderabad Industries' heavy engineering division at Uttarpara in West Bengal, situated next to Birla's ailing automobile outfit Hindustan Motors Ltd.

Alstom of the UK is the main contractor for the 2X620mw plant while Tamrock has bagged the coal handling equipment contract.

In addition to fabrication and turnkey projects, the division makes hydraulic excavators with bucket size between 2.3 cubic metres and 16cum and mechanical crawlers of 25 to 90 tonnes.

The heavy engineering division's president SK Madhok said that the parts of the circular stacker- reclaimer would be built to Tamrock's specifications at Uttarpara and assembled on site in Taiwan.

Madhok said half the deliveries for the first circular coal handling equipment had to be made by March 2000 and the deadline for the second machine was May 2000.

Following a global tender invitation to the listed vendors of Tamrock, the Rs 300-crore Hyderabad Industries got an enquiry in August this year. Two officials of the Austrian company visited the plant the next month. Two experts from Alstom and Tamrock also inspected the plant in November, though the company had already bagged the order in October.

Following the visit by Alstom officials, the company received the final clearance.

Madhok said: ``Having gone through the audit of both Alstom and Tamrock successfully, we are looking forward to implement theorder.''

He said all the departments of the division right from operating systems, equipment, project and quality management systems to manufacturing facilities were inspected by the foreign officials.