BEL revenue likely to hit Rs 10,000 cr mark: CMD

Navratna defence PSU Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) today said its revenue is expected to touch the Rs 10,000 crore mark in the current fiscal, supported by a good order book.
"We will grow at the same pace and my feeling is we will be very close to Rs. 10,000 crore mark this year," BEL CMD M V Gowtama said responding to the revenue forecast for 2017-18 fiscal.
Asked whether the company would achieve Rs 10,000 crore mark this year, he said, "our aim is to cross, we will try to cross."
The company has reported a turnover of Rs 8,825 crore in the 2016-17 fiscal, compared to Rs 7,541 crore in 2015-16.

Speaking at the annual press conference here, Gowtama said his confidence about touching Rs 10,000 crore mark comes from the company's order book.
"We have order book of Rs forty plus thousand crore in all verticals. There is no vertical where we do not have an order at this point of time and I can tell you for sure that this year we are aiming to cross Rs 10,000 crore. I hope certainly we would," he said.

BEL said it has prepared a three-year Research and Development plan for 2017-20 with enhanced focus on collaborative R&D.
Speaking about it, Gowtama said, "for the next three years we have more than Rs 2500 crore worth R&D programmes lined up. Some are at an advanced stage, some are already initiated and rest are going to be initiated."

"We are proactively investing in various futuristic programmes that will ensure consistent growth for the company. One of the major programmes we are investing is with DRDO for development of quick reaction surface to air missile system, for which the board has approved Rs 274 crore," he said.
BEL's outlook for the future includes capacity enhancement and creation of new test facilities for defence business.
Stating that it aims to continue indigenisation efforts in line with "Make in India" initiative, the company said radars, missile systems, communication and network-centric systems, tank electronics, gun upgrades, electro-optic systems and electronic warfare and avionics system would drive growth.

BEL is also pursuing business opportunities in solar energy, homeland security, smart cities, smart cards and telecom.
Highlighting the company's "Make in India" initiative, Gowtama said 88 per cent of its sales revenue is from indigenous technology.
He said procurement from MSMEs had been increased to 20 per cent and BEL's test facilities were being provided to private vendors.
Company officials said during the year (2016-17) BEL achieved export sales of USD 65 million.Major products include coastal surveillance system, CoMPASS,VHF Radio Bharti,Advanced Composite Communication System, Ship Borne EW System (Sanket), Electro Optic Fire Control system, among others, they said.
The Export order book is of USD 82 million as on April 1, 2017, and it includes offset order book of USD 15 million.