Economy

Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited Bhopal Administrative Building illuminated during night time. Recently BHEL completed its glorious 50 years in Bhopal.




The city is divided into two major areas, the old city and the new city. The major industries in the old city are electrical goods, cotton, chemicals and jewellery. Other industries include cotton and flour milling, cloth weaving and painting, as well as matches, sealing wax, and sporting equipment. The residents here also engage in small retail businesses. Handicraft is a major product of the old city. There is a huge demand for its very famous zardozi work, which is a kind of embroidery done on bridal dresses, sherwanis, and purses. Another famous handicraft of Bhopal is 'Batua', a small string purse, usually used with Indian traditional dresses. There are a large number of garages in the older city which specialise in automobile conversion. These garages produce custom-modified and tuned cars, SUVs and motorbikes.

Being a state capital, the new city has a majority of residents working for the State and Central Government Departments. There are two major office complexes on Arera Hills named Satpura and Vindhyachal, which house a number of State Government offices and projects. Adjacent to them is the State Secretariat, Vallabh Bhavan. In their vicinity are other State and Central Government offices which include major national banks and insurance companies. Bhopal's major commercial area is Maharana Pratap Nagar, which accommodates many business houses. There are a number of hardware as well as software vendors in this part of the city. Other businesses include daily newsletter offices and press, hotels and restaurants, coaching and tuition centers and entertainment.

Bhopal has a cantonment in the old city as well as military presence near Bairagarh and the airport. The cantonment houses one of the Services Selection board centers that recruits troops and officers for the armed forces.

Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, the largest engineering and manufacturing enterprise in India, has a unit in Bhopal. It occupies a large area on the eastern side of the city and maintains a suburb named after it. A majority of the residents of the suburb are employed by the unit. Mandideep is an industrial suburb of Bhopal. It is located to the South of Bhopal on the Bhopal-Itarsi highway and houses a number of plants belonging to some of the reputed companies of India like Procter & Gamble, Fujitsu, Eicher, L&T, HEG and VA Tech Hydro. A North Western suburb of Bhopal called Bairagarh, which was earlier a camp for Sindhi refugees from Pakistan, has developed into market for textiles.

Bhopal is also home to the Bhaskar Group which is a Rs. 1700 crore (Rs. 17 billion) business conglomerate with strong presence in newspapers, television, entertainment, printing, textiles, fast moving consumer goods, oils, solvents and internet services. Its head office is located in Maharana Pratap Nagar. Manjul Publishing House, located in the old city, is a major publishing house made famous by the translation of the Harry Potter series of novels into Hindi.

The Madhya Pradesh State Electronics Development Corporation Ltd. is going to develop a Software & Hardware Technology Park in Bhopal. Multinational companies like Genpact, Fujitsu and Taurus Microsystems are expected to open their centers in the Technology Park.

Bhopal in 2020