As part of expansion plans and embarking on certain new joint ventures, public sector company BHEL is to recruit about 4,000 persons, including executive engineers annually, at least for the next three years, a top company official said on Thursday.
At present, there are 45,000 plus employees in various BHEL units and the company plans to enhance it to 52,000-55,000 by the end of 2012, B Prasada Rao, chairman and managing director of the unit told reporters last night.
The company also plans to start industrial training institutes as a solution to overcome the difficulty in getting artisans to BHEL's sub-contractors, he said.
The PSU had forwarded a proposal to the railway ministry, enabling them to be a partner with Indian railways to install a manufacturing unit at the campus of railway workshop in Kalcharapar in West Bengal.
The proposed joint venture would enable BHEL produce self propulsion vehicles along with delicate components for the railways on an assured off-take.
He said they have received a fresh order worth about Rs 990 crore (Rs 9.90 billion) from railways to supply about 150 electric locomotives. BHEL unit at Jhansi would manufacture and supply the engines.
He said works on the joint venture projects for additional power generation of 2x800 MW and 3x800 MWs in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka respectively was expected to be completed within the next two months.
Rao said talks are on with employees' unions on wage revision, with a new wage structure to be in place within a few months.
BHEL would invest Rs 235 crore (Rs 2.35 billion) on its Vishakapatnam plant to produce power plant equipment and components, Rao said.
"The order position for power plant equipment is quite encouraging with pending orders worth about Rs 1.3 lakh crore (Rs 1.3 trillion), which could be cleared in three or four years", he said.
Of the 78,000 MW capacity additions in the current five year plan, BHEL had bagged orders for 44,000 MW or equivalent to 55 per cent of the quantity.
In the current year quarter, the PSU had maintained over 21 per cent growth in revenue earnings. The trend is expected to continue and top line growth would be more than the present one by end of this fiscal, while bottom line would range from 35 to 40 per cent, he said.
