BEL to establish second unit in Krishna district

Turnover of the new plant at Nimmakuru to be much higher than the one in Machilipatnam

Scientific Advisor to Defence Minister G. Satheesh Reddy, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Ashutosh Sharma, and president of SRS Avinash Chander at Sensors-2016, in Hyderabad on Friday. —Photo: G. Ramakrishna

A new plant to make state-of-the-art IR seekers for missiles, night vision devices, and thermal imaging cameras is being set up at Nimmakuru in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh by the defence public sector undertaking, Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL).

Talking to The Hindu on the sidelines of Sensors-2016, a two-day national conference on ‘Advances in Sensors: Lab to Field’ here on Friday, S K Sharma, Chairman and Managing Director of BEL, said, while the turnover of the existing BEL facility at Machilipatnam was Rs.400-500 crore, the new plant’s turnover would be much higher. He said it would be operational in about three years.

He said the Nimmakuru plant would indigenously produce IR seekers and other components that were being imported.

Mr. Sharma said huge investments were being made in the Bengaluru and Ghaziabad BEL units for developing and producing Active Electronically Scanned Array radars in two-three years. He said BEL was collaborating with Israel for manufacturing missile guidance radars and with the French firm, Thales, for development of radar technologies.

New proposal

Mr. Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, who was the chief guest at the conference, said the Union Government would shortly invite proposals from scientists for different sensors that could be incorporated in smart phones for a wide gamut of applications like checking ECG, soil health, air and water pollution.

He said a committee would look into the proposals and selected projects would be funded by the government.

Scientific Advisor to Defence Minister Dr. G. Satheesh Reddy urged researchers to design futuristic sensors while pointing out that many of the sensors being used in missiles were being imported. He said there was a need to handhold the industry in making quality sensors. He said the government would give preference to indigenous systems, even if the cost was higher.

Dr. Avinash Chander, President of the Sensors Research Society and former Director-General of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), said the market size of sensors was projected to be around Rs.1,50,000 crore by 2030. He said India needed to harness this potential and develop niche capability in key sensors.