By IANS,
Ranchi : City-based Heavy Engineering Corp (HEC) and Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to form a joint venture company that will manufacture casting and forgings.
The agreement was signed between HEC chairman and managing director G.K. PIllai and his BHEL counterpart K. Ravi Kumar in HEC campus Friday afternoon.
HEC’s present unit of forge and foundry will be transferred to the new entity, to be set up on 55:50 equity participation.
The expected annual turnover of the new company, in which BHEL will invest Rs.1 billion, will be around Rs.10 billion.
“The foundry forge plant of HEC has got the basic required infrastructure facilities and capacity which after some renovation and modernisation will be able to meet the demands of casting and forgings arising out of power generation capacity augmentation programme in the country,” central government’s Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Sontosh Mohan Dev said.
Apart from Dev, Jharkhand Chief Minister Shibu Soren, union Minister of State for Commerce and Power Jai Ram Ramesh and Principal Secretary of Prime Minister T.K. Nayar were also present at the function.
BHEL chairman Kumar said: “We are planning to hike our manufacturing capacity to 20,000 MW by 2011-12. The MoU will help BHEL meet the target of work order of Rs.115,000 crore (Rs.1.15 trillion) in forge and casting.”