BHEL employees win maximum number of Prime Minister's Shram awards

Among Public & Private Sector companies in the country, BHEL employees have won maximum number of Prime Minister’s Shram Awards (2004). These awards are the country’s highest honour bestowed on individuals for outstanding contribution towards production and productivity, technological innovations, cost saving, import substitution and valuable saving of foreign exchange.

Significantly, the only ‘Shram Bhushan’ awarded for the year has been won by a BHEL employee. In addition, seven Shram awards have been won by 13 employees of BHEL from its units located at Trichy, Hyderabad, Haridwar and Bhopal.

This is nineteenth year since inception that BHEL employees have won these prestigious awards, instituted by the Ministry of Labour, Government of India.

The awards were presented by the Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh, at a function held here today.

While Mr. S.P. Gupta, Chargeman at the company’s Haridwar plant has been awarded the Shram Bhushan, Mr. M. Subramanian (BHEL Trichy), Mr. M. Sudhakar Reddy (BHEL Hyderabad) and Mr. Mahipal Singh (BHEL Haridwar) have been honoured with PM’s ‘Shram Vir’ awards. Besides, Mr. Bihari Lal Dhruv and Mr. Sunil Kumar Soni, both from BHEL, Bhopal, have also jointly won the Shram Vir award. In addition three ‘Shram Shree’ Awards have been shared by eight BHEL employees from the company’s plants at Bangalore and Trichy.

Mr. S.P. Gupta, the Shram Bhushan awardee has contributed towards enhancing productivity by developing several fixtures for machining operations in the manufacture of rotors and stators. His innovations have resulted in savings of Rs.55 Million for the company including precious foreign exchange saving of Rs.21 Million for the country. Mr. Gupta is a pioneer of the productivity movement and launched the Quality Circle movement at BHEL’s Haridwar plant.

Instituted in 1985, the ‘Shram Awards’ carry a cash prize and a Sanad. So far, 52 BHEL employees have won 40 of these coveted national Awards.