BHEL to invest Rs 900 cr on R&D

Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) will invest Rs 900 crore towards Research & Development (R&D) in the next three years. The company, which is currently setting up a thermal power plant in Vijayawada, said it is in negotiations with partners such as NTPC to start work on another power plant in Oriya.

BHEL said its R&D division, that has a robust products and services pipeline, registered a turnover of Rs 5,405 crore for the year ended March 31, 2009. “For the current financial year, we’d be spending Rs 650 crore on R&D, a 40 per cent increase over the previous year. This will correspond to 2.36 per cent of our overall turnover and is by far the highest amount spent by any public sector undertaking in the country,” said A L Chandraker, Executive Director, BHEL.

The company has spent Rs 464 crore towards R&D in 2007-08 and is likely to spend Rs 800 crore in 2010-11.

Meanwhile, BHEL said of the total order book worth Rs 1,17,000 crore, 60 per cent comes from the power sector. “We will continue to retain our focus on power and at the same time work on other sectors too,” Chandraker said.

“The thermal power plant in Vijayawada, which is a joint venture with AP Genco, will be operational in 2011. We are talking to partners in other states like Oriya to take up similar projects in the power sector,” said Chandraker.

The company, which employs nearly 270 engineers, is planning to induct 17 more doctrates to the existing 33.

In an attempt to tap the market potential for large nuclear power plant applications, BHEL is designing a boiler feed pump for the 700 mw nuclear power plant at Trichy.

During 2008-09, BHEL filed 211 Intellectual Property Rights including 126 patents and 85 copyright applications. So far, it has filed 866 IPs and the company expects to increase the number of filings significantly in the near future.

ref:
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