Having achieved an all-time high turnover of Rs. 10,008 crore in 2009-10, netting a profit before tax (PBT) of Rs. 2,510 crore, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Tiruchi complex, has raised the target for turnover to Rs. 12,765 crore and PBT to Rs. 3,542 crore for 2010-11. In 2009-10, the growth in turnover was 34 per cent and the PBT 52 per cent.
BHEL, Tiruchi, has crossed the Vision 2012 target of Rs.10,0000 crore turnover in the 2009-10 fiscal itself, and is re-structuring to grow at an even faster pace with the addition of one more manufacturing unit for piping and piping related components at Thirumayam in Pudukkottai district.
The commencement of the Rs. 732-crore Unit-II augmented the installed manufacturing capacity of the high pressure boiler plant to 10,000 MW a year, corresponding to an installed capacity of 15,000 MW annually for BHEL as a whole. The process of Phase-III expansion at an expenditure of Rs. 440 crore for adding to the capacities of Phase-I and Phase-II units has already begun.
The Thirumayam unit, involving an investment of Rs. 250 crore, will become operational by the end of 2011. The new unit will have more piping products, to meet the demand of petrochemical industries and nuclear equipment manufacturers, Executive Director of BHEL, Tiruchi, A. V. Krishnan, said addressing a press conference here on Friday.
On the research and development front, he said BHEL had identified 80 future technology projects in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M). Sixty-nine patent and copyright applications were filed during the year, and a turnover of Rs. 2,158 crore was achieved from the commercialisation of research and development and engineering developments.
The installed capacity of BHEL supplied utility sets went up to 91,481 MW and the company maintained its two-thirds share in the country's installed capacity. BHEL-built power generating sets generated an all-time high of 490 billion units of electricity accounting for 74 per cent of the total power generation in the country, Mr. Krishnan said. On the equipment performance, he said BHEL-built thermal sets achieved an impressive operating availability of 87.5 per cent, and the plant load factor was 78.5 per cent, both higher than the national average. Seven of the eight thermal power stations that received the Ministry of Power's meritorious productivity awards for 2008-09 had equipment supplied by BHEL.
Eleven customers, including Jindal Power, Hindalco, Sterlite, Tata and Videocon, who were not satisfied with equipment supplied by Chinese manufacturers have come back to BHEL. Quality prevailed, Mr. Krishnan said, when asked about the cost-advantage of Chinese products. BHEL has started supplies for the country's first 660 MW and 800 MW once-through supercritical boilers for Barh (2 x 660 MW) and Krishnapatnam (2 x 800 MW), he said.
Production through outsourcing from over 500 vendors crossed a record four lakh tonnes of boiler structures, 25 per cent more than last year. A target of seven lakh tonnes has been set for 2010-11, Mr. Krishnan said, and expected local vendors to take up capacity expansion seriously. On the possibility for internal competitors to wean away sub-contractors, he said vendors were happy and would remain with BHEL owing to the advantages of raw materials supply, technology support and timely payments.
