The Hindu Business Line : BHEL expansion work apace

Tiruchi, March 24 The second phase of the expansion of the boiler plant of the Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) here is under way in full swing and the public sector major is racing against time to complete the project by March 2009 to meet the demand for power plant equipment during the Eleventh Plan period.

The company is investing about Rs 732 crore on the second phase of the expansion, the biggest ever capacity augmentation programme in its 42-year history.

On completion by March 2009, BHEL’s manufacturing capacity would go up to 15,000 MW equivalent of power plant equipment a year. The capacity augmentation, company officials say, would be adequate to meet the power plant equipment demand during the Eleventh Plan.

Target plan

The company hopes to be in a position, after the expansion, to supply over 75,000 MW equivalent of plant equipment over a five-year period.

The High Pressure Boiler Plant at Tiruchi was set up in the 1960s in collaboration with Skoda Export of Czechoslovakia with an investment of Rs 24.50 crore and a manufacturing capacity of 750 MW. The unit’s capacity has been gradually enhanced through three major expansion projects and addition of new plants down the years.

The company completed Phase I of its latest modernisation drive in December 2007, with an investment of Rs 190 crore, to take its manufacturing capacity to 10,000 MW from 6,000 MW a year.

Phase II would add about 1.25 million sq ft of shop floor and associated office space, spread over about 130 acres in the 3,000-acre BHEL campus here. On-site fabrication work is under way to erect additional shop floors.

“We are geared to complete the project in time, though we are working to very tight schedules. Normally such projects take up about three to four years,” Mr S. Karunakaran, General Manager, Modernisation, BHEL, Tiruchi, told presspersons here. The project commenced in March 2007.

“The new plant will be a model with modern machines and office space. Nearly 30 per cent of the plant area would be green space,” said Mr P. Nainar, Additional General Manager, Maintenance Services and Civil.

Machine types

About 63 different types of machines were installed under Phase I and Phase II would bring in 75 more, many of them imported. These would include an incremental pipe bending machine, termed as one of the largest in the world, an 8,000-tonne press, drum-shell machining facility and system bender for making coils up to the length of 21 metres. A 110- kV sub-station would also come up.

The unit is taking in more manpower too. It has recently recruited about 1,165 skilled artisans such as welders, fitters and electricians and about 500 more would be hired shortly. It would add another 1,500 skilled artisans to its rolls over the next couple of years.

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