Seeking to expand its horizon, state-run Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to set up a 50:50 joint venture company with Toshiba of Japan for manufacturing power equipment for transmission and distribution in India and abroad.
“All the formalities pertaining to the formation of the venture will be completed by June this year. It would be a 50:50 joint venture,” BHEL Chairman and Managing Director B. P. Rao told reporters after the signing the agreement on Wednesday.
“We may set up new (manufacturing) plant for this joint venture,” Mr. Rao added. The proposed joint venture company plans to undertake the business of equipment and project, including transformers, reactors and switchgears in addition to other products and systems.
The joint venture will receive technology for the equipment and systems from Toshiba.
This proposal was originally floated by the then Minister of State for Power and now Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh in April 2008.
Mr. Rao also said that BHEL was going on a hiring spree, and would add 8,000 employees to its workforce in the next two years to meet the growing domestic demand for power equipment. BHEL had set a target to add 20,000 people in the XI Plan of which over half have already been enrolled.
The power equipment manufacturer would be adding another 8,000 people in the remaining two years of the Plan period.
Mr. Rao said that BHEL alone could not be blamed for the delay in supplying equipment to power projects as the country aims to add 78,000 MW by 2012.
