The 550-crore, city-based Sahyadri Industries Ltd, recently bagged two awards for the "Best Performing Wind Mills of the member companies" for the years 2006-07 & 2007-8 at the 13th annual general meeting (AGM) of the Indian Wind Power Association which was held at Hotel Jennys Residency in Coimbatore. It has won these prestigious awards in the sector comprising Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and MP for two consecutive years 2006-07 and 2007-08. These wind mills of the German-based Enercon GmbH were the first massive machines of 600 KW to be installed in India way back in 2001 with the latest gearless wind turbines technology.

The awards were received by Satyen V Patel, director, (commercial) and S U Joshi, director from chief guest Dr Pramod Deo, chairman, Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, New Delhi. A special technical committee which comprised of senior members of the association checked the reports and data submitted from various sites and companies. It was only after evaluating various parameters such as - site location, wind zones, wind speeds, weather conditions, average wind velocities, power generations etc that they arrived at a decision to give the coveted award to the deserving winner. Also present on the occasion were guest of honour Prasad R Menon, director of Tata Power, Mumbai, Mahesh Makhija, VP (Renewables) CLP Power, Ahmedabad, and other prominent luminaries from the power generation fields. Sahyadri Industries Ltd, founded by the late L B Patel in 1947, is a well-known group in the building material industry based in Pune. The product range comprises of "Swastik" brand Fibre cement roofing sheets,"Cemply" Flat sheets for interior and external applications and "Entasafe" all steel main doors for housing. The group also boasts of having one of Indias's largest factories to manufacture Autoclaved Aerated Concrete blocks under the brand name "Ecolite," at Nashik, stated a press release.