Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL), which is looking to increase its turnover from indigenously-developed products, has hiked its research and development (R&D) budget by 15.3 per cent to Rs 300 crore for 2010-11. Last year, the company spent Rs 260 crore on R&D.
Apart from the R&D budget, the company has also hiked its capital expenditure by about 16 per cent to Rs 350 crore for 2010-11 which will be used mainly to modernise its facilities, Ashwani Kumar Datt, chairman and managing director, BEL said.
BEL has set up R&D divisions within each of its 18 strategic business units and at the central research laboratories in Bangalore and Ghaziabad. The company interacts with national laboratories like Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), ISRO, CSIR, C-DAC and C-DOT, and also academic institutions like IISc, IITs and NITs for developing specialised indigenous technologies, he said.
He said, an indigenously-built coastal surveillance system would be deployed in 46 strategic western and eastern locations in the country from this November to check intrusions from sea and counter such threats.
Being developed by BEL, the system includes radars and electro-optic and meteorological sensors, and would be mounted on light-houses or towers at these locations. “It will give a complete operational picture of the sea up to 20 km deep into the sea. So, all targets can be brought onto a screen and they can be seen from regional centres,” BEL’s director (R&D) I V Sarma said.
Datt said the system has already been demonstrated at two locations and the trial phase had been completed. The company is now awaiting an order valued at over Rs 500 crore from the Indian Coast Guard which would maintain the stations with BEL’s technical support. Under the project, 46 locations have been identified along the western and eastern coasts where stations would be set up.
The round-the-clock system would enable authorities to collect “radar and visual output”. “The concept is to look into the sea, and identify intrusion attempts,” Datt said. So, within three years, India is expected to deploy the system along the entire coast.
Datt said, BEL was in the process of deploying an intelligent CCTV surveillance system in the Parliament. Recently, the company bagged an order worth Rs 30 crore. It involved integration of over 400 cameras on an IP platform with an integrated command and control centre. The intelligent feature of the system include video and audio content analysis, redundant recording, reporting and response matrix and integration with 3D modelling of Parliament House and Tetra Communication System.
