Astra Microwave Products Limited, a Hyderabad-based company engaged in the manufacture of microwave components and subsystems for wireless communications used in defence, space and civilian applications, has bagged an order worth Rs 57 crore from Israel-based ELTA Systems Limited.
The order from ELTA, a provider of electromagnetic sensors-based advanced defence systems for radar, electronic warfare and communications, is Astra's first contract under the offset obligations clause of India's Defence Procurement Policy 2006.
The order, which envisages supply of ELTA with microwave wireless sub-systems for India's defence radar programme, is expected to be executed by mid 2010. “The manufacturing of these components for the radar products will commence from April 2009,” B Malla Reddy, managing director of Astra Microwave, had earlier told Business Standard.
The company, which is currently catering only to the Indian market, is executing a Rs 40-crore order from the Space Application Centre (Ahmedabad), which envisages manufacture of transmit/receive modules for the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro)’s remote sensing satellite. The company expects to complete the same by December 2008, he said.
Astra Microwave posted revenues of Rs 123 crore in the last financial year. It expects to close the current fiscal with revenues of about Rs 130 crore on the back of the Rs 95 crore orders that it has on hand, which are scheduled for execution in the current fiscal. These include an Isro order for radar wind profilers and a Rs 25.5 crore order from the Indian Meteorological Department for supply of remote unmanned automatic weather stations in 550 locations across the country.
