NEW DELHI, March 25 (UPI) -- India's Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd. said it is working to ensure the second phase of a boiler-plant expansion will be complete by March 2009.
"We are geared up to complete the project in time, though we are working on very tight schedules," said S. Karunakaran, BHEL's general manager of modernization. "Normally such projects take up about three to four years."
Work on the project began in March 2007. Its completion by next March will go a long way toward meeting the nation's power generation goals for the 11th plan period.
BHEL's manufacturing capacity would increase to 15,000 megawatt equivalent of power plant equipment a year after the completion of the plant. The capacity augmentation would be adequate to meet the power plant equipment demand during the plan, The Business Line newspaper reported Tuesday.
The company said that after the expansion it could be in a position to supply more than 75,000 MW equivalent of plant equipment over a five-year period.
The high-pressure boiler plant at Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu state, was set up in the 1960s in collaboration with Skoda Export of Czechoslovakia with a manufacturing capacity of 750 MW. The unit's capacity has been gradually enhanced through three major expansion projects and addition of new plants over the years, the company said.
The company completed the first phase of its latest modernization drive in December 2007 to take its manufacturing capacity to 10,000 MW from 6,000 MW a year.
