BEL to set up plant for missile seekers

Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), the Bangalore-based public sector defence electronics company, is actively looking at a possibility of collaborating with an overseas company to set up a manufacturing plant to produce seekers for missiles in the country, a top company official said.

“Our core competence is in the defence electronics segment and we are looking at increasing our business in this area. As part of this strategy we are looking at new business opportunities and that include making seekers for missiles. We are in talks with a world leader for setting up a facility to jointly manufacture seekers in India,” Ashwani Kumar Datt, chairman and managing director, BEL said.

Talking to Business Standard on the sidelines of Aero India 2011, he said the country is currently dependent on imports for seekers for its missile programme and it cannot depend too much on the imports. “We need to achieve self sufficiency in seekers as it is a critical component in a missile programme. Presently, BEL does not require seekers for its Akash Weapon System, but there are other missiles that need seekers and we want to produce them locally,” he said.

The company wants to manufacture seekers and supply to other public sector missile maker, Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL). The investment required for setting up a new manufacturing plant for seekers could range between Rs 300 crore to Rs 500 crore and BEL has enough cash to support its plan, he said and added that currently BEL has a cash reserve in the range of Rs 3,500 crore.

As regards Akash Weapon System order from the Indian Army, Datt said the company expects to get substantial business from the Army, while the system will be integrated by BDL.He said the company hopes to get an order worth around Rs 500 crore from the Indian Coast Guard for Coastal Surveillance System by end of March this year. Datt said the company is in final stages of talks with Thales of France for forming a joint venture for both civilian and defence applications.

The company is already working with Thales on many programmes successfully, he added. In addition to this, BEL is also in talks with Rafael of Israel for forming another joint venture for missile seekers and guidance electronics.

BEL, which reported a turnover of Rs 5,220 crore in 2009-10, is looking at a growth of 10 per cent to achieve a turnover of over Rs 5,700 crore during 2010-11.

The company’s current order book position stands at Rs 16,742 crore.