Chennai, April 04, 2006 (Business Line)

L&T has begun the new fiscal with an order backlog of Rs 25,000 crore, the company's Chairman and Managing Director, A M Naik, told newspersons today.

He added that last year's fresh order bookings were about Rs 19,000 crore.

The orders on hand are executable over the next two years. The company has set itself a target of 22-25 per cent for sales growth for the current year.

Naik was in the city for the inauguration of a new building, Technology Centre-II, for L&T Infotech Ltd. The 1.51 lakh sq ft building can seat 1,300 employees.

To a question, he said that the company would recruit around 4,500 people (not including factory workers) in the current year. About 2,000 of them would be for engineering and manufacturing and the rest for engineering design and IT services.

According to Naik, manpower is one of the key challenges the company is faced with (as is with most companies in India). Stating that no manufacturing company would be able to pay as much as the IT sector, Naik said that the only answer to the problem was to "train, train and train people and learn to live with an attrition rate of 17-18 per cent."

To another question, he said that L&T would pick up chunks of business from the Defence, aerospace, and nuclear sectors.

M.V. Kotwal, Senior Executive Vice-President (Heavy Engineering), said that the company saw big opportunities in the aviation sector, particularly in advanced composites - reinforced metals - for aviation application.

In a couple of months, L&T will start building small ships at Hazira in Gujarat, according to Naik.

The company had earlier announced that it was looking at ship building in major way.

While no decision has been taken yet on a major entry into ship building, Naik said that the company would start producing small ships immediately.

The decision for a major entry into shipbuilding hinges on finding the suitable location - a port with 15-metre draft at a place where people would be willing to come for work.