Investing in R&D to enhance quality

B Prasada Rao CMD, BHEL

Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (Bhel) is doing well despite competition from cheaper Chinese imports. The company has drawn up corporate plans to further consolidate its position in the domestic power market. The company has also bucked the demand growth slowdown in the capital goods industry in the second half of the current financial year.

Flush with funds, the company plans to set up a cold rolled grain oriented silicon (CRGO steel plant in partnership with Steel Authority. CRGO is a key raw material for power equipment manufacturing. But as of now, there is no plant in India to manufacture this specialty steel and Bhel meets its entire requirement through imports.

The proposed plant will not only improve availability of the raw material for its manufacturing units but will also help it reduce its cost. That would in turn enhance its competitiveness against other vendors.

With the government planning to introduce large-sised, supercritical units in the country on a large scale, Bhel has tied up strategic technological collaboration to put up facility for the manufacturing of heavy forgings, which are critical to the manufacturing of turbine-generators.

Anticipating fiercer competition in the domestic power equipment, the company has also intensified in-house research and development work in recent years to reduce import content in supercritical equipment, which is a new technology for the

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