OREANDA-NEWS. December 13, 2011. Employees of Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) have once again bagged five 'Vishwakarma Rashtriya Puraskars' for the year 2009, among a host of public & private sector companies in the country. With this, the total number of Vishwakarma awards won by BHEL employees has gone up to 111 awards.

The awards were presented by the Hon’ble Minister for Labour & Employment, Sh. Mallikarjun Kharge, at a function in New Delhi.

5 Vishwakarma Rashtriya Puraskars have been shared by 23 employees from BHEL’s Trichy and Haridwar units, for innovative suggestions leading to cost reduction, higher productivity, safety and quality of products

In addition, 3 'National Safety Awards' have been won by BHEL's Hyderabad and Trichy units 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, consistently, since their inception.

Recently, BHEL employees were also conferred 8 Prime Minister’s Shram Awards (2008 to 2010) among a host of Public & Private Sector companies in the country.

Aimed at encouraging individuals to take up improvement projects for capability building and for continuous improvement in every sphere of activity, an Improvement Projects Rewards Scheme (IMPRESS) is operational company-wide. 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.

BHEL continually invests in education and training programmes for employees witha view to constantly upgrading their skills and knowledge. The company has several employee productivity enhancement initiatives in place, such as multi-skilling of employees, effective utilisation of critical machines through three-shift, 24-hour operations and redeployment of employees.