BHEL Tiruchi to tap rail, sea routes

Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has joined hands with Indian Railways and is planning to tie-up with port operators to move its manufactured items to the project sites. The move is not only to bring down the logistics cost but also to the reduce time and avoid problems, arising in the villages while transporting the manufactured goods.

According to AV Krishnan, executive director, BHEL (Tiruchirapalli Unit), which manufacturers boilers for power plants, the unit has tied-up with Indian Railways and booked 40 rakes to start with. The Railways has also agreed for green pass, which means the train can leave Tiruchy and can reach the destination without any stopovers, except for some technical purpose.

The first 40 rakes left Tiruchi last month to Sakthi Nagar in Uttar Pradesh, with 3,000 tonne of materials, for five projects in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

“The materials will be offloaded at Sakthi Nagar yard, which is owned by Indian Railways. From there, it will be sent to the project sites which are less than 100 km away,” said Krishnan. Cost-wise, it was one-third and the time saving was nine days over the 15-day movement by road, he noted.

BHEL is now planning to start similar services along with Indian Railways to cater customers at up North and Western side. “We have asked Indian Railways to identify yards,” he said.

The unit is also looking at using seaports as alternate logistics solution. “We are in dialogue with Karaikal port, promoted by Marg Group for complete solution.”

The unit is planning to send the materials from Karaikal port to ports in Paradip or Haldia to cater to Eastern region projects including those of Indian Oil Corporation and Hindujas, among others. He said BHEL Tiruchi would be the first unit within BHEL to try multi-modal logistics solutions.