EMI English news | EMI, Latest News & Live Updates in English | English News (Latest English News) at Lokmattimes.com

"As diversification into non-defence opportunities will drive our growth, we are entering into more verticals in the civilian sector, including space electronics, solar, homeland security, smart cards, telecom, railways, civil aviation, fuel cells and lithium batteries," BEL Chairman M.V. Gowtama told reporters here.Though the city-based defence behemoth caters largely to the Indian armed forces, including the army, Navy and Air Force, it has been foraying into more civilian space for diversification and broad-basing its business, rolling out electronic voting machines (EVMs), solar panels for intelligent traffic management signals and set-top boxes for direct-to-home digital broadcasting services."We supplied over a million EVMs and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) units to the Election Commission for conducing the recent Lok Sabha elections across the country. Our machines were used in 400 of the 542 parliamentary seats. The order contributed Rs 2,600 crore business in fiscal 2018-19," Gowtama said."The poll panel also used EVMs and VVPATs made by the Hyderabad-based state-run Electronics Corporation of India (ECIL) in the remaining 142 parliamentary seats," he said after presenting the financial performance of the 'Navaratna' company.The company will supply more EVMs and VVPATs to the states where assembly elections are due later this year or early next year. The orders will be for new machines and upgraded versions to replace the older voting machines."We expect orders worth Rs 600 crore from the states to supply EVMs and VVPATs in this fiscal (2019-20) and more orders from other states where assembly elections are due."Of the Rs 51,798-crore order book value the company has for this fiscal, around 50 per cent of it (Rs 25,000 crore) is from the Navy, Rs 9,000 crore from the Army, Rs 7,000 crore as annual management contracts (AMCs) and upgrades and Rs 3,000 crore from civilian sector."Our capital expenditure for this fiscal will be Rs 660 crore for new facilities in Hyderabad plant, Palasamduram in Andhra Pradesh's Chittoor district, Bengaluru, Bhatinda in Punjab and Jodpur in Rajasthan," said the Chairman.A portion of the capex will also be spent on modernising the plant machinery to overcome obsolescence, which is rapid in the electronics domain.In the defence business, the company received orders for supplying the long range surface-to-air (SAM) missiles for the Navy's Project-17A class Shivalik stealth frigate, integrated perimeter security system for the air force, home land security system for naval airfield and naval equipment (war reserves) and setting up of weapon repair facility at naval shipyards."We have also got export orders valued at $117 million (Rs 807 crore) for making vacuum interrupters, X-ray parts, transmitting tubes and EMI (electro-magnetic interference) filters," added Gowtama.( With inputs from IANS )

EmiFOLLOW

Emi, Latest News

Riding on the strong demand for iPhone XR and iPhone 11, Apple became one of the fastest-growing brands in India in the fourth quarter of 2019, capturing 2 per cent market share with a year-on-year growth of 41 per cent, Counterpoint Research said on ...

Chinese smartphone maker OPPO which doled out Rs 300 crore worth unique offers on its smartphone portfolio during the first wave of festive sales has paid off well and the company has witnessed an overwhelming response, Sumit Walia, VP, Product and M ...

Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus on Tuesday announced it has clocked Rs 500 crore in revenue in just two days of the Amazon Great Indian Festival sale. ...

Buoyed by the thumping response to the iPhone XR, Apple has once again hit the price-conscious Indian market with iPhone 11 starting at Rs 64,900 which is Rs 12,000 cheaper than the launch price of iPhone XR last year. With HDFC cards, you get Rs 6, ...

Gearing up for the next phase of growth in consumer Internet and financial services, digital payments player Paytm on Monday announced the promotion of its Chief Financial Officer Madhur Deora as the company's President. ...

A specially-abled man, Jagdamba Singh, in Ramanuj Ganj area of the Surguja district in Chhattisgarh, drives an auto-rickshaw to support his family. ...

The National Housing Bank (NHB) has advised housing finance companies (HFCs) to stop providing loans to finance subvention schemes offered by builders to sell homes. ...

State-run Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) is diversifying into more civilian areas to spur its corporate growth in fiscal 2019-20, a top company official said on Saturday. ...