BHEL offers its premises to global majors for shifting base to India LAND TWICE LUXEMBOURG’S SIZE OFFERED

New Delhi, May 4: Staterun engineering firm BHEL on Monday said it has invited expression of interest from global manufacturing firms to leverage its facilities and shift their production base to India.

A large number of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) intends to shift their manufacturing base from China to other countries after the Covid19 outbreak and India can leverage its capabilities to attract them, industry expert.

"In order to further promote Make in India and support international companies for setting up manufacturing in India, BHEL has floated an expression of interest (EOI) inviting global companies to partner with it and leverage its facilities and capabilities for setting up manufacturing base in the country," a BHEL statement said. said an

According to the statement, the ongoing economic disruption across the world due to Covid-19 has highlighted the dangers of manufacturing activities being concentrated in a single location and the need for diversification of supply chains and manufacturing.

This has thrown up a huge opportunity for India, one of the fastest growing economies and an attractive investment destination that offers strong democratic governance, a well-established judicial system, a young workforce, one of the largest domestic markets and favourable investment policies, it added.

BHEL has 16 manufacturing facilities spread across the country with substantial land bank and an extensive built up industrial/ commercial and residential spaces.

Its manpower strength of about 34,000 includes 9,000 engineers with experience in cutting-edge technologies.

India is developing a land pool double the size of Luxembourg to lure businesses moving out of China, sources said. A total area of 461,589 hectares has been identified for the purpose. That includes 115, 131 hectares of existing industrial land in states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

Luxembourg is spread across 243,000 hectares, according to the World Bank. The government has hand-picked 10 sectors for as focus areas for promoting manufacturing.