B. Prasada Rao

Mr. B. Prasada Rao appointed Chairman and Managing Director, BHEL

On his appointment as Chairman & Managing Director of Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Mr. B. Prasada Rao, 55, has assumed charge as CMD of India’s largest Navratna Public Sector engineering and manufacturing enterprise, here today.

Mr. Rao takes over to lead the company at a crucial juncture when BHEL is building capacity and capability to contribute fully for meeting the country’s power forecast for the 11th plan and beyond. For this, the company is enhancing its manufacturing capacity to 15,000 MW per annum and will further augment it to 20,000 MW per annum by March, 2012.

Mr. Rao is a Mechanical Engineering Graduate from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh and a Post Graduate in Industrial Engineering from NITIE, Mumbai. He has 31 years of diversified, versatile and varied experience through working in strategic as well as operational areas in all major segments of BHEL covering concept-to-commissioning activities.

Mr. Rao started his career in BHEL as an Industrial Engineer at Industrial Systems Group (ISG), Bangalore in 1978, worked at project sites and initiated the Project Management function at ISG. He has been responsible for conceptualising the approach for organisation of BHEL’s Industry Sector business segment and drawing up a Blueprint for Electronics in BHEL. Later, he spearheaded the diversification initiative at the company’s Electronics Division for BHEL’s entry into Defence Simulators & Telecom products. He was instrumental in setting up the company’s Electronics Systems Division, the 14th manufacturing unit of BHEL, in addition to Planning & Development activities.

Subsequently, he joined the Heavy Power Equipment Plant at Hyderabad as In-charge of manufacture of Steam Turbines, Gas Turbines and Compressors during which the manufacture of the first frame 9E GT and the first 130 MW KN series two cylinder Steam Turbine was successfully established. He had been specially trained in GE, USA in the manufacture of Advanced class Gas Turbines.

At the Corporate Planning & Development department, he successfully led two Corporate Plan exercises ‘Strategic Plan 2007’ and ‘Strategic Plan 2012’ involving company-wide activities. He led the project on ‘Positioning BHEL for accelerated growth’ along with a renowned management consultant. He represented India in the Study Group of World Energy Council on their study for developing ‘Energy Policy Scenarios to 2050’. He also served as the company’s interface with the investment community. He has been a Member of the CII Capital Goods Committee and has been an active interface with Industry & Government bodies on various policy matters of concern to BHEL.

As head of Industrial Systems & Products business sector, the position occupied till his selection as CMD, he has been responsible for enhancing the overall business growth in the Industry Sector to an unprecedented level and a number of first time ever achievements in all the 8 business segments viz. Captive Power Plants, Transmission, Transportation, Industrial Products - Mechanical & Electrical, Defence, ROD products and NCES systems. He has ensured a turnaround in Transmission projects group with the highest-ever revenue and profits during 2008-09 after a gap of 6-7 years of continuous losses.

http://www.bhel.com/press_release/press_pop.php?press_id=362