Nagpur: Twenty-five years ago, Maharashtra govt acquired Hemant Bhave’s land at Khapri, where he ran a small engineering unit. Bhave, who started off the venture — Bhagyashree Home Appliances — as a 28-year-old in the Eighties, had barely settled by that time, when he had to move lock, stock and barrel. “I was in shock and the compensation offered was too little to make up for the loss,” he said.Two decades down the line, Bhave, whose name featured among the list of project-affected persons (PAPs), is back as an inventor in the project. Now, the area constitutes one of India’s largest multiproduct special economic zones (SEZ) — Mihan. His unit Bhagyashree Home Appliances company is taking over 2.5 acres to set up a plant for making aircraft components catering to two prestigious units in the SEZ — Dassault Reliance Aviation Limited (DRAL) and Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL). DRAL will roll out Falcon business jet — the first-ever commercial aircraft made in India from Mihan — and makes spares for Rafale fighter jets and TASL caters to aviation giants Boeing and Airbus.Outside the SEZ, it is also a vendor for Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), supplying sheet metal parts for Su-30 fighter jets, and gave key spares to ISRO for the Chandrayaan mission.Bhave has retained the old suffix ‘Home Appliance’ to the company’s name. It is because he started with making a device that measured cooking gas in a cylinder while in use, helping consumers to book another in advance.“It was a long journey though. The land acquisition left us uprooted, and we were clueless. The new land acquisition law that gives five times compensation was not in vogue then. What we got was a pittance, but there was no choice but to leave,” recalls Bhave.He later took up a fresh plot in MIDC’s Hingna industrial estate. Things changed after 2012 when his son Prasad returned with a degree in aerospace engineering. By that time, the company had diversified from the home appliance business, taking up metal related engineering jobs.“We planned to explore the aviation sector and slowly gained success. Today, we are among top 20 vendors for certain major companies and the contribution to ISRO also earned commendations,” says Prasad.The decision to shift to Mihan-SEZ was taken because two of the major clients have their facilities in the zone. He would be making an array of components based on the designs provided by the clients. It’s one of the key vendors for Godrej Aviation, supplying components to Kaveri indigenous engines being built for Tejas aircraft.
