BHEL adds one more feather

P.S. Chauhan

The BHEL Haridwar, a leading unit of the Navratna public sector undertakings of the country, has added another glorious feather in its already plumed cap. The unit has successfully dispatched the country's first indigenously manufactured 600 MW turbo generator to the North Chennai Thermal Power Project of Tamil Nadu Electricity Boad. The state of art-generator set was flagged off by the executive director of the BHEL, D.K. Mody.

"These new series of generators shall also cater to the requirements of super critical thermal power stations with turbines of 660 & 700 MW ratings," said Mody. The additional general manager Rajiv Bhatnagar said that with the successful dispatch of the generator, a new benchmark has been set up by the BHEL, Haridwar with respect to indigenous manufacture of thermal sets with supercritical parameters. "Several such sets of 600, 660, 700 and 800 MW ratings are presently under various stages of manufacture at the BHEL Haridwar. The facility for assembly and testing of this series of generators upto the capacity of 1000 MW rating has been designed and engineered in-house at the BHEL's Haridwar plant," informed Bhatnagar. Meanwhile, in another development, Varinder Pandhi who joined the BHEL in 1975 and rendered yeoman's service to the top company of the country in several units and various prestigious assignments, has taken over charge as the new executive director of the BHEL Haridwar. The outgoing executive director, D.K. Mody is due for superannuation in July 2011. Pandhi told Haridwar Plus that the BHEL has enhanced its manufacturing capacity to 15,000 MW per annum & would augment it upto 20,000 MW per annum by March 2012. "In coming years, our country expects a lot from the BHEL for its power agenda & it will be our best endeavour to come upto the expectations of the country," averred Pandhi.