BEL achieves record turnover of Rs 3960.38 cr

New Delhi, Apr 3 (UNI) The premier defence Public Sector Undertaking Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) has recorded its highest so far turnover of Rs 3960.38 crore (provisional) for the 2006-07 fiscal -- an increase of 12 per cent over the last corresponding period's turnover of Rs 3536 crore.

The estimated Profit Before Tax is Rs 1041.6 crore, as against last fiscal's figure of Rs 855.2 crore, which is an increase of 22 per cent.

BEL achieved exports worth US Dollars 11.6 million. The turnover per employee for 2006-07 was Rs 32.1 lakh -- an increase of around 12 per cent over last year's figure of Rs 28.8 lakh.

According to BEL Chairman&Managing Director VVR Sastry, some of the significant orders executed during 2006-07 were the supply of Flycatcher Radar, Reporter Radar, Surveillance Radar Element, Ellora, an Electronic Warfare System, Hand Held Thermal Imager, an Integrated Shipboard Data Network for P-17 class of ships and implementation of convergent billing for MTNL.

New products introduced during the year included Safari - a jammer system used for VVIP security and for protection of Army convoys, Advanced Land Navigation System, VPS Mk III, a hand-held, lightweight UHF radio for use by the defence forces, Battery Level Radar, Electronic Voting Machine Mk II and Intelligent Message Terminal.

The order book as on April 1, 2007 is estimated to be around Rs 9,100 crore. The significant orders received during the year include the Artillery Combat Command&Control System, Electronic Warfare systems, STARS V Mk II, a secure tactical radio in VHF band, and Naval Systems for P28 and P15A class of ships.

BEL is one of the select PSUs signing the Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Defence Production ever since the Government introduced this performance measurement system in 1989-90. BEL has achieved MoU rating of 'Excellent' for the past 9 consecutive years.

During 2006-07, BEL declared 40 per cent interim dividend to its shareholders -- the third consecutive year that BEL paid interim dividend. BEL is one of the few select PSUs consistently paying dividend.

BEL CMD VVR Sastry presented the interim dividend cheque for Rs 24,27,58,400 to Defence Minister AK Antony in the Capital on February 22 last.

Consistently performing well, BEL also bagged the prestigious SCOPE Excellence Award in the Medium Public Sector Enterprise category for 2005-06. The award was received by BEL CMD VVR Sastry from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the Conference of Chief Executives of Public Sector Enterprises held in the Capital on March 8 last.

The criteria for selection for the award includes business results, leadership, policy and strategy, customer value management, new product development, operations management, human resource management, human capital development, corporate social responsibility, corporate image and standards of corporate governance.

Significantly, during 2005-06, BEL -- having recorded a turnover of Rs 3,536 crore -- had around 95 per cent of the estimated Rs 3,200 crore market for strategic electronics in India. The Defence PSU spends about 4 to 5 per cent of its annual turnover on Research&Development every year.

UNI