CHENNAI: The State government on Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Harsha, a Dubai-based industrial group, to set up a float glass manufacturing facility and a heavy engineering industrial unit to cater for oil and gas, energy and power sectors. The group will invest Rs.1,500 crore in the two projects. The float glass facility will make glass for architectural applications and special-grade coated glass for solar photovoltaic panel manufacturing. It will also provide turnkey solutions to specialised process industries, said Arun Miranda, director, Harsha. The Harsha group caters to the needs of industries in the oil and gas, energy and power sectors, undertakes turnkey contracts for specialised process industries such as float glass, tableware glass, cables and steel. Direct employment The facilities near Chennai will provide direct employment to 1,500 persons and indirect employment to 1,200 persons. Mr. Miranda told The Hindu that he was hopeful that the ground-breaking functions for both the projects would be held in the first quarter of 2009, and the facilities would come up by the end of the year. The group opted for the State because of various factors, including the responsiveness of the government and the incentives it offered.