BHEL plans to invest Rs 1,000 crore for modernisation

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Engineering major BHEL plans to undertake capital expenditure of Rs 1,000 crore in 2012 for internal modernisation and expansion of different sectors under its ambit, the company CMD B. Prasada Rao said.

Besides this, Rs 400 crore has been set aside for a JV investment for setting up a steel plant, of which 30-40 per cent offtake will be for the company's own consumption, he told reporters here last night.

He said BHEL has been comfortably securing orders both in India as well as overseas.

With Government of India's target of installing eight lakh MW by 2032, which is four times the current capacity and with most of this is likely to be in PSUs, BHEL was confident of sustained growth in the coming years, he said.

With many projects in the pipeline, BHEL was optimistic of adding 7,000-8,000 MW order before end of this fiscal. In the first quarter of the year, BHEL secured order for providing equipments for generation of 3,000 MW. "The remaining three quarters also seem positive," he said.

Overseas orders from the Middle East, Africa and SAARC nations also had no bottlenecks, he added.

"All put together, BHEL expects orders worth Rs 8,000 crore. This includes 9,000 MW from Bhutan and other countries like Libya, Ethiopia and Syria with a mixture of hydro thermal and captive generation sets. With this volume of orders, BHEL's export contribution will go up to eight per cent from the current six per cent."

Prasada Rao indicated that as of now the pending order book was to the value of Rs 1,32,000 crore.

Referring to defence sector, he said BHEL was showing improvement with 76MM guns for engineering having already started production at its Haridwar plant.

However, the growth was a little slow as only two to three units are produced in a year and the revenue was only about Rs 300-400 crore, he said.

In the transport sector, BHEL had enhanced its manufacturing capacity at its Jhansi plant. "Discussions are on with Ministry of Railways for setting up a plant in West Bengal," he added.