BEL MD and Chairman Gotwama Cites Space Electronics Next Big thing in India
Defence PSU Bharat Electronics Limited’s (BEL) order book as on April 1, 2019 stood at ₹51,798 crore as compared with ₹40,115 crore in April 2018.
During the year 2018-19, company has acquired ₹23,431 crore worth of new orders. The expenditure on R&D was ₹1,077 crore as against ₹988 crore in 2017-18. The value added per employee was ₹60.38 lakh in comparison to ₹45.86 lakh the previous year. On the export front, order book stood at $116.62 million as on April 1, 2019.
In his annual press conference, M V Gowtama, chairman and managing director, BEL said “about 96 per cent (provisional) of sales revenue accrued is from indigenous technology and of the company’s ₹51,798 crore order book, major customers were Indian Navy around ₹25,000 crore, Indian Army ₹9,000 crore and the Indian Air Force ₹8,800 crore.”
“Of late, the company which had heavy defence focus has begun to diversify more on civilian applications and has identified space electronics, solar, homeland security, smart card, telecom, railways, civil aviation and software as service,” he added.
BEL has supplied 74 per cent of the Electronic Voting Machines and VVPAT to Central Election Commission for the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls.
