BEL wins Raksha Mantri’s awards

Four Units / Strategic Business Units (SBUs) of Navratna Defence PSU Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) have won the Raksha Mantri’s Excellence Awards under various categories for the year 2007-08. The four Units / SBUs are BEL-Hyderabad, which has won the Raksha Mantri’s Award for the ‘Best Performing Division’ among Defence PSUs; BEL-Ghaziabad, which has won the Group / Individual Award for ‘Import Substitution’; Military Communication SBU at BEL-Bangalore, which has won an award for ‘Design Effort’ and BEL’s Central Research Laboratory at Bangalore, which has won an award in the ‘Innovation’ category. The awards were presented by the Defence Minister, Mr A K Antony, at a ceremony held today (November 6, 2009) at New Delhi. Mr Ashwani Kumar Datt, Chairman & Managing Director, BEL, received the Best Performing Division Award along with Mr S K Sharma, General Manager, BEL-Hyderabad. The Import Substitution Award was received by Mr S C Jain, GM (Radar), BEL-Ghaziabad, along with Mr Chandra Prakash, General Manager (D&E-OU). The Design Effort Award was received by Mr H S Bhadoria, Director (Bangalore Complex), along with Mr Amol Newaskar, General Manager, Military Communication, BEL-Bangalore, Mr V V Balakrishnan, AGM (D&E), Military Communication, and Mr Desanna M, Member (Senior Research Staff), Central Research Laboratory. The Innovation Award was received by Mr I V Sarma, Director (R&D), along with Dr Ajit Kalghatgi, Chief Scientist, Central Research Laboratory, Bangalore, and Mr L Ramakrishnan, Member (Senior Research Staff), Central Research Laboratory. Best Performing Division Award: BEL’s Hyderabad Unit has been conferred the ‘Best Performing Division’ award in the category of Division / Factory award for 2007-08. The Hyderabad Unit of BEL was established in 1985 for manufacture of Electronic Warfare (EW) systems in technology partnership with DRDO laboratories. The Unit has emerged as a leading facility for development and manufacture of cutting-edge EW systems for a wide range of applications including ground-based, air-borne, ship-borne and submarine-based platforms. Systems worth more than Rs.3,000 crores have been supplied to the defence services and security agencies. BEL-Hyderabad has demonstrated its prowess as a production agency for massive programmes such as the indigenously developed Ground Mobile Integrated EW Samyukta System for the Army and ship-borne Ellora systems for the Navy, which is being installed on all major warships. The Unit has also manufactured a range of Surveillance, Radio Direction-Finding and Electronic Counter Measure Systems for the paramilitary forces. During 2007-08, the Unit crossed Rs.600 crore turnover and contributed to 15 per cent of the Company’s annual turnover. Import Substitution: BEL’s Ghaziabad Unit has been selected for the Raksha Mantri’s Award for Import Substitution under the Group / Individual category for successfully developing an indigenous radar, which resulted in savings in the form of foreign exchange. Rohini, the 3-Dimensional Central Acquisition Radar developed by Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE) and concurrently engineered and productionised by BEL - with contribution from private sector organisations - ensures that our armed forces are able to neutralise any air route aggression along the entire border as well as in the hinterlands. Rohini is a state-of-the-art Multifunction Medium range Mobile Surveillance Radar capable of handling multiple targets simultaneously in ‘Track While Scan’ mode. It employs an array of Electronic Counter Counter Measure (ECCM) features including frequency agility and jammer analysis. A Secondary Surveillance Radar, IFF, is integrated with the Primary Radar Rohini - which facilitates identification of friendly / enemy aircraft. The entire Radar system’s operation is fully automated. Mounted on ‘Tetra’ mobile platform, a heavy duty modified truck, and supported by an auxiliary mobile power unit, it enables the Rohini to be easily transported to the battlefront. Design Effort: The Military Communication SBU of BEL-Bangalore has been awarded the Raksha Mantri’s Award for Design Effort in recognition of it bringing out a state-of-the-art frequency hopping VHF radio comparable with the best in the world. BEL has developed VHF Radios STARS V Mk II (5 Watt & 25 Watt) for the Indian Army. These radios innovatively combine transmission security (TRANSEC) through anti-jamming features of frequency hopping and high grade communication security (COMSEC). They are designed to consume less power and are packaged to be light-weight. These features enable STARS V Mk II radios to benchmark with other world-class radios. As these radios are designed in-house, the security algorithms can be managed / modified as required by the customer. They are designed to inter-operate with existing legacy radio sets available with the Army.