BHEL employees win 3 Vishwakarma National Awards for 2007; Company's total tally of Vishwakarma National Awards crosses 100, BHEL also bags 1 National Safety Award

New Delhi, September 16 For their innovations, employees of Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited BHEL have once again bagged three 'Vishwakarma Rashtriya Puraskars' for the year 2007, among a host of public and private sector companies in the country. With this, the total number of Vishwakarma awards won by BHEL employees has gone up to a 103 awards.

3 Vishwakarma Rashtriya Puraskars have been shared by 8 employees from BHEL's Haridwar, and Hyderabad units, for innovative suggestions leading to cost reduction, higher productivity, safety and quality of products. Various innovations and modifications in manufacturing systems and processes undertaken by these awardees have resulted in substantial recurring and non recurring savings to the company.

In addition, 1 National Safety Award has been won by BHEL's Hyderabad unit for outstanding achievements in terms of the longest accident free period and lowest accident frequency rate at their works. Significantly, BHEL and its employees have been winning both these prestigious national awards, instituted by the Government of India, Ministry of Labour, consistently, since their inception.

People in BHEL have always been its strength and BHEL continues to invest in their learning so as to enable them to develop new ways of providing innovative solutions to customers.

BHEL has also achieved substantial savings as a result of the implementation of an Improvement Projects Rewards Scheme IMPRESS. Aimed at encouraging individuals to take up improvement projects for capability building and for continuous improvement in every sphere of activity, the scheme was introduced company-wide in 2005-06. The scheme is e-network based and provides weightage for various aspects like relevance to the department, innovation/creativity, meeting targets, institutionalization, deployability and financial impact.

In 2006-07, the scheme was given special thrust to harness untapped potential in the organization for achieving higher efficiency in conversion of basic inputs like material and capital into saleable products and services. About 9,500 improvement projects were registered under the scheme, during the year.

In addition, implementation of employee suggestions led to savings of over Rs.210 Million, during 2006-07. During the year, 20,782 suggestions were contributed by employees, out of which 9,823 were found viable and were accepted. The suggestion scheme was introduced with a view to institutionalize the culture of excellence in the company and to motivate its human resource - the most valuable asset to give competitive advantage in the fiercely competitive and rapidly changing business environment.