BHEL Tiruchi fares well despite industrial slowdown

By Our Special Correspondent

TIRUCHI, APRIL 5. Despite continued industrial slowdown affecting seriously the entire engineering and capital goods industry during the year, Bharat Heavy Electricals, Tiruchi, has registered a 10 per cent growth to reach an all time high turnover of Rs. 1,751 crores. All the four plants of the Tiruchi BHEL complex have earned profit, totalling Rs. 173.30 crores, before tax, and had accounted for 56 per cent of total profit of Rs. 296 crores earned by the BHEL corporate office. Giving the information at a press conference today, Mr. V. K. Gopinath, Executive Director, said exports including deemed exports showed an increase of 21 per cent over last year.

Despite stagnation in power as well as core industrial sectors, BHEL could book orders worth Rs. 998 crores during the year, and the orders on hand were worth Rs. 1,849 crores, said Mr. Gopinath. A record 73 per cent of the total power generated in the country was by the sets manufactured by the BHEL. The BHEL built thermal sets registered an all time high plant load factor of 70.1 per cent, and operating efficiency was also the highest ever at 81.8 per cent.

The turnover of the high pressure boiler plant last year was Rs. 1,675 crores, Ranipet plant Rs. 280 crores, seamless steel tube plant Rs. 124 crores, and the Goindwal industrial valves plant Rs. 14.20 crores.

Admitting that the new orders booked during the year were well below expectations, Mr. Gopinath said within the next few months it hoped to obtain orders worth over 2,000 MW, since all the work connected with these orders were completed months ago, and were ready forward.

For the Kalpakkam atomic research station, the BHEL, Tiruchi, has taken up the fabrication of the 500 MW prototype fast breeder nuclear reactor, and already the complex three-dimensional large vessel sector of stainless steel has been completed. The cycle time for completion of the 500 MW boiler was being reduced to 36 months from 56 months, and of 210 MW boilers from to 28 months from 42 months to maintain the competitive edge, he added.

Modernisation

Realising the need for constantly improving its efficiency, BHEL was gearing up to manufacture more efficient, eco-friendly super- critical, higher thermal sets of 660 MW capacity for future mega power projects, and had taken up a holistic approach for modernising the plant to enhance its competitive edge said Mr. Gopinath. BHEL had taken many steps for facility modernisation, new technology acquisition and in-house product development, and process improvements.

The modernisation project of the plant costing Rs. 190 crores commenced last year and was completed in February, six months ahead of schedule, with a cost saving of Rs. 40 crores. The fossil industrial boiler plant was being modernised at a cost of Rs. 102 crores and Rs. 10 crores has been allotted to modernise the boiler auxiliaries plant at Ranipet. Already an incremental pipe bending machine has been installed at an investment of Rs. 16 crores, and the valves modernisation scheme costing Rs. 15.80 crores has been completed.

During the current year, BHEL will place orders to the tune of Rs. 83 crores to the ancillaries and small scale industries. About 2,000 workers had opted for the voluntary retirement scheme last year, and the compensation paid to them was around Rs. 100 crores.

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Section  : Business
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