BHEL presented SCOPE Meritorious Award for Research and Development, Technology Development and Innovation by the President of India

The Hon’ble President of India, Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil presented the ‘SCOPE Meritorious Award for R&D, Technology Development and Innovation’ to Mr. B.P. Rao, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), here today.

The prestigious recognition has been conferred on BHEL for the year 2009-10. The commendation was bestowed on the company at the Public Sector Day celebration function, jointly organised by the Department of Public Enterprises and SCOPE.

Significantly, the recognition comes close on the heels of the ‘SCOPE Award for Excellence and Outstanding Contribution to Public Sector Management’ presented to BHEL by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, recently.

R&D and technology development are of strategic importance to the company as it operates in a competitive environment where technology is a major factor. As a result of constant thrust on developing new technologies and products, BHEL has recorded a 31% growth in its intellectual capital in FY 2010-11. During the year, 303 patents and copyrights were filed by the company, translating into filing of over one patent / copyright every working day. Similarly, during FY 2009-10, the company had filed 264 patents / copyrights.

With this, the company’s intellectual capital has gone upto 1,438 patents and copyrights filed, which are in productive use in the company’s business. Notably, BHEL has been ranked as the number one company in terms of filing patents in India by Economic Times Intelligence Group.

During fiscal 2010-11, BHEL invested an all-time high Rs.10050 Million on R&D efforts - 21% higher than the previous year. The company’s investment in R&D in FY 2009-10 was Rs.8290 Million. With an R&D spend at over 2.3% of its turnover; BHEL is the highest spender on R&D in India for its kind of industry. Commercialisation of products and systems developed by way of in-house R&D contributed around 18% to the company’s total turnover of Rs.434510 Million in 2010-11.

Significantly, BHEL is one of the only four Indian companies and the only Indian Public Sector Enterprise figuring in ‘The Global Innovation 1000’ of Booz & Co., a list of 1,000 publicly-traded companies which are the biggest spenders on R&D in the world. BHEL has also won the CII-Thompson Reuters Innovation Award 2010 in the ‘Hi-tech Corporate’ category. The award recognises BHEL’s innovation and entrepreneurship in India based on number of patents and efficiency and impact of innovation as measured by patent citations.

The company’s Corporate R&D division at Hyderabad leads BHEL’s research efforts in a number of areas of importance to BHEL’s product range. Research and Product Development (RPD) centres at all its manufacturing divisions play a complementary role. In keeping with the national commitment to a clean environment, BHEL has developed the technology for Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power plants and is pursuing the development of Advanced Ultra Supercritical Thermal Power Plants in the country. BHEL is also actively working on a number of projects in futuristic areas like Clean Coal Technologies, Nano Technology, Fuel Cells, Superconductivity and Thin-film solar cells, etc.