Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) specialising in fabrication in the city are in deep crisis as Heavy Plates and Vessels Plant (HPVP), 17 unit of BHEL is not placing any work order after the merger of the Bharat Heavy Plate and Vessels with it.
As a result of the BHPV’s merger, which earlier used to be the subsidiary of the BHEL, the management reportedly stopped placing orders on about 25 to 30 vendors operating at Gajuwaka, Pedangantyada, Lankalapalem and other areas.
“Most of our units are either closed or have declared a laid off or terminated many workers for want of work orders,” Visakha Autonagar Small Scale Industrialists Welfare Association president Ramakrishna Narapareddy told The Hindu on Tuesday.
As the subsidiary of the BHEL, the erstwhile BHPV was getting orders from BHEL units at Hyderabad and Trichi. Now it is not getting orders from the two units. Sources said BHEL has promised to give orders once it gets a big contract from IOC, Haldia in a month or two.
About 600 workers are employed by the vendors depending on the HPVP. The vendors were getting orders to the tune of Rs.2 crore per month from erstwhile BHPV.
Mr. Narapareddy said they were in a limbo as the Hindustan Shipyard Limited, on which they were also partly dependent, was delaying payment of bills by five to six months after submission of claims.
As per the Public Procurement Policy of 2012, 20 per cent of their requirement should be sourced through local vendors.
“We request HPVP and other major engineering units based in the city to encourage us to improve our financial health,” he said.
BHPV, the city-based heavy engineering and fabrication industry, was set up in 1966 as an independent unit. It later became a subsidiary of Allahabad-based Bharat Yantra Nigam Limited.
Following demand from employees and local leaders, it was made a subsidiary of the BHEL and subsequently merged with the Maharatna company last year.
The Union Cabinet approved the merger in February, 2013 with expectation to give a big boost to the BHEL to enter into oil and gas sector by getting orders for gas gathering stations and gas processing units through the HPVP.
“Merger with BHEL was a long time demand raising our hope that we will have better days ahead. But denial of work orders has crippled us to a large extent,” bemoaned a vendor, who has a fabrication unit at Autonagar, Gajuwaka.
