Centre should restore BHEL’s price advantage in tender specification

Employee Trade Unions in BHEL apprehend that the progressive decline of the 'Maharatna' company caused by paucity of orders cannot be stemmed if the Centre does not restore to the company the 15% price advantage given to local suppliers in tender specifications.

The future of several thousands of employees will be at stake in a not so distant future if BHEL continues to lose out to multi-national companies in securing projects, in the absence of level-playing field, representatives of trade unions say.

The governments at the Centre and States must desist from facilitating multi-national companies to subdue BHEL in International Competitive Bidding. Eventual destruction of the company that is the prime aim of the MNCs will finally lead to the price escalation at a later point of time, Senior Vice-President of AITUC Rajendran cautioned.

The trade unions have urged all State utilities to emulate Telengana Government that has chosen to ignore the initial price advantage in favour of the performance of the boilers. The other States must realise that the unparalleled peak efficiency of the boilers supplied by BHEL was what stood the company in good stead for securing the order from the Telengana Government, Mr. Rajendran said.

After a gap of three to four years, there was a silver lining during 2015 when BHEL achieved a new landmark by securing the single largest order in its history for setting up a 4,000 MW rating supercritical thermal power project from Telangana State Power Generation Corporation.

The order entails design, engineering, manufacture, supply , construction, erection, testing and commission of five thermal units of 800 MW each on `engineering, procurement and construction' basis

All other State utilities also have the leverage to provide similar support to BHEL, vice-president of CITU Sampath said. Strong life-span of boilers supplied by the foreign companies ought to be made the basic parameter for companies to participate in International Competitive Bidding, Mr. Sampath emphasised.

Source:http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/centre-should-restore-bhels-price-advantage-in-tender-specification/article19441783.ece