Fault tree analysis is one of the important logic and probabilistic techniques used in reliability evaluation and risk assessment of an industrial system. It is a deductive, failure-based approach, which starts with an undesired event and then deduces its causes using a systematic backward stepping process. The objective of this article is to apply fault tree analysis to evaluate reliability and risk assessment of a thermal power plant taken as a case study. To achieve this objective, failure data has been collected from the plant and this information has been used for performing Pareto analysis to single out major reasons of failure. Finally fault tree has been contrived entailing the components of steam flow process responsible for major breakdowns. The stumpy value of reliability persuades the use of strategic maintenance policy to improve the reliability of the plant.