Indigenisation, Make in India, major thrust areas for BEL

Public sector defence electronics major Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) on Wednesday announced the 'Make in India' programme and indigenisation as major thrust areas.

"We are positively contributing to Make in India and our turnover from indigenous technology is 86 percent. We are at the forefront of indigenisation," said BEL chairman S.K. Sharma.

"Indigenously developed naval surveillance radar was exported for the first time to Myanmar," he said.

The company has sourced 40 percent of input material from Indian private industries and SMEs, also aimed at offering them a hand holding experience.

With more focus on core areas and R&D, BEL is outsourcing all non-core areas to Indian industries, adding 800 new indigenous vendors annually.

"Emphasis on in-house R&D continues which is part of collaborative R&D with DRDO labs and also some select foreign OEM to get some critical technologies, including the Indian private sector as well," said Sharma.

"With more focus on collaboration, long-term outsourcing and indigenisation policy has been released, with nodal officers for outsourcing and vendor development nominated," he said.

BEL released a three-year R&D plan for the period 2016-19 and formed control electronics R&D group to address missile electronics business.

BEL's R&D expenditure rose from Rs 549 crore in fiscal 2014-15 to Rs 704 crore in 2015-16.

According to Sharma, procurement from MSMEs rose by 20 percent in 2015-16 against eight per cent in the last fiscal while BEL has opened its test and manufacturing facilities to nearly 250 vendors SMEs to test and develop technologies.

Elaborating on new manufacturing initiatives, the chairman said BEL is planning an additional test bed facility at Bengaluru for missile and weapon system integration.

Near field test range and EMI/EMC test facilities for high tech radars at Ghaziabad, additive manufacturing facility at Bengaluru and X-ray inspection facility and environmental stress screening chamber in Chennai are also part of the new manufacturing initiatives.

--IANS

sth/rn/bg