Bhel expects orders worth Rs 35,000 cr

Bharat Heavy Electricals (Bhel), the country's biggest power-equipment maker, said it expects to win more than Rs 35,000 crore ($8.7 billion) of orders in the year ending March 31.

Bhel's total orders rose to Rs 65,000 crore in August after it won Rs 20,000 crore of new orders in the period, Chairman Ashok K Puri told reporters today in New Delhi, where the company is based. The company won Rs 35,000 crore of orders in the last financial year ended March.

"We are looking at almost the same level of orders as last year,'' he said.

New Delhi-based Bharat Heavy is winning orders at home as India targets expanding power-generation capacity by more than 50 per cent to 193,000 megawatts by 2012. Record crude prices are driving oil-rich nations to build infrastructure, fetching Bharat Heavy orders from countries in the Wets Asia and Libya.

India, which currently generates 128,182 megawatts of electricity, plans to set up eight large power projects, each generating more than 4,000 megawatts. The Union government aims to spend $149 billion to boost generation and upgrade transmission and distribution networks.

Japan, the world's second-largest economy, has electricity output capacity of 233,886 megawatts, according to the nation's trade ministry.

Bharat Heavy, whose stock has risen 71 per cent in the past 12 months, plans to invest Rs 3,200 crore to boost its capacity to 15,000 megawatts by 2009 from 10,000 megawatts in December, 2007, Puri said. It plans to raise the capacity to 20,000 megawatts by 2012 after completing its expansion plan.

The state-run company plans to more than double manpower in the next five years to 20,000 employees from 8,000, Puri said, without giving more details.