Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) has received its biggest-ever export order from Airbus. Airbus Defence and Space has signed a deal with BEL under the C-295 aircraft programme of the Indian government for the manufacturing and supply of radar warning receivers and missile approach warning systems.

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Anandi Ramalingam, CMD of Bharat Electronics, said this is the first export order from Airbus valued at nearly $90 million (Rs 670 crore). The main subsystems, which comprise this order, are radar warning receiver (RWR) and missile approach warning system (MAWS).

“Another noteworthy feature apart from being the biggest ever order of BEL is that it is in the true spirit of Atmanirbhar Bharat, the whole system is designed, developed and manufactured indigenously. It is designed by DRDO and manufactured by BEL. It will also get integrated with a countermeasure dispensing system, which will be supplied by Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL)," she added.

According to her, the whole defence systems will be designed and manufactured within the country. Throwing light on their current orderbook position, Ramalingam said it currently stands at nearly Rs 56,000 crore. The company has won good export orders in the current year. “This year order accretion has been very good and we are anticipating that we will be able to acquire orders worth about Rs 15,000 to 20,000 crore in the current financial year,” she said in an interview with CNBC-TV18. When asked about margins from the current Airbus orders, she said she could not give the exact margin number but said the margins would not be strained.

On order visibility she said, "As far as export orders are concerned in this particular year itself, we hope to acquire another 25 million euro of orders from part of the consortium supplying the Rafale aircraft to the Indian air force."The major component of the radar, which is transmit-receive modules (TRMS) are being manufactured by BEL.

“We have supplied nearly 1,700 of them in the last financial year and together 8,000 numbers are in the pipeline, of which about 4,000 we are likely to conclude shortly for about 25 million euros," she said.She said the domestic order pipeline was also very good.

"We have electronic warfare systems of Airforce amounting to about Rs 4,000 crore, we have electronic warfare systems for Army amounting to about Rs 3,500 crore, then there are naval systems which we are targeting about Rs 3,000 crore."

"We also have Akash Prime, which is actually Akash Army for which BDL will be the lead integrator but a lot of other radars and other ground systems come from us and that will be around Rs 4,000 crore,” said Ramalingam.These are the orders that the public sector company is tracking in the next maybe six to eight months’ time. Further to that, many other orders of big missile programmes are in the pipeline, added Ramalingam."So I'm sure that in the next few years, we will be able to acquire nothing less than Rs 15,000 to 20,000 crore per year comfortably," she further said.

For the full interview, watch the accompanying video

First Published:Nov 23, 2021 1:53 PM IST