BHEL nails 1st phase of capacity augmentation

Tiruchirapalli, Mar 22: The Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) here, has completed its first phase of capacity augmentation in December 2007, to manufacture 10,000 mw of power per annum at a cost of Rs 190 crore, BHEL Modernisation General Manager, S Karunankaran said today.

Addressing a press conference here, he said the work on the second phase for increasing capacity to 15,000 mw per year was progressing, with an investment of Rs 732 crore. He claimed that the ongoing capacity augmentation would be adequate to meet the market demand, taking into account the Central Electricity Authority's capacity addition target of 78,577 mw for the 11th Five Year Plan (2007-2012).

The BHEL complex here achieved a record turnover of Rs 4,607 crore, nearly a quarter of BHEL's total turnover, in 2006-07 fiscal, with an all-time high PBT of Rs 872 crore, he added.

Modernisation, AGM, Gopinath said, since its inception in collaboration with Skoda Export of Czechoslovakia in the sixties, with an initial investment of Rs 24.50 crore, the boiler plant had adopted a strategy of continuous upgradation of its products and facilities in tune with emerging market demands.

Accordingly, between 1974 and 1984 the installed manufacturing capacity of the boiler plant had been enhanced three times, enabling it to supply boilers of unit sizes of 200 mw and above. During this period several unique facilities such as the 8,000 ton press, the 6 MeV Linear Accelerator, high productive system bender, semi-automatic flat-fin panel welding machine etc, were installed, he added.

He said since 1984 BHEL Tiruchirappalli had gone in for a series of product-oriented-investment schemes, based on anticipated market demands for specific products.

Modern facilities were set up for manufacturing utility and industrial boilers, heat recovery steam generators, heat exchangers, pressure vessels, headers, piping, forged steel valves and constant load hangers, he added.

The phase-one expansion brought in 63 different types of machines while the on-going phase-two works would introduce another 75 high productive machines, for raising the production capacity, he added.

Mr Gopinath also pointed out that the augmentation scheme was designed to meet the projected market demands from the power and industry sectors and the emerging options such as site fabrication and away centre fabrication for low technology items. As the enhanced scale of operations of the boiler plant would also require additional skilled manpower, BHEL Tiruchirapalli has recruited 1,165 freshers of various technical categories like turners, fitters and mechanists, besides its regular annual induction of engineer trainees, he added.

The capacity augmentation scheme was also designed to achieve significant 'quality improvement' through process modernization and productivity enhancement, using high productive facilities and reduction in cycle-time, rejection and re-work, he claimed.

With the completion of capacity augmentation process, BHEL will play a vital role in the Centre's mission of 'Power for All by 2012', he claimed.

UNI