Bharat Electronics surged on Thursday on the back of upbeat Q3 results.

The stock of the state-run defence electronic equipment maker was up by 4% at Rs 195.65 on the BSE in afternoon trades, after the company announced its third quarter results. The stock has found place in the final of list of scrips for trading in the derivatives segment of the NSE from 31 January 2003.

For Q3 ended December 2002, Bharat Electronics has announced solid results on the back of a healthy order book position. Its net profit surged by 106% to Rs 53.10 crore from Rs 25.75 crore in Q3 ended December 2001. Total income has gone up by 19.6% to Rs 482.59 crore (Rs 4.03 billion) from Rs 403.40 crore (Rs 4.03 billion). Other income has risen by 89% to Rs 12.65 crore from Rs 6.68 crore.

BEL, a public sector giant, is one of the largest manufacturers of radars, wireless communications systems and other technical equipment for the defence forces. Earlier, the company's performance was under strain due to the post-Pokhran nuclear blast sanctions by the United States. However, post-Kargil, the government has realised the need to increase its focus on acquiring strategic technical equipment for the defence forces, which has dramatically changed the fortunes of the company.

BEL introduced new and upgraded products based on in-house technology. Many of the products like decoy radars, upgraded air defence weapon control radars, coastal surveillance systems, low-power transmitters, tele-medicine systems, PC motherboard-based chipsets, etc. have been inducted into service or are under final stages of evaluation by various customer groups.

In November 2002, BEL signed a contract with the Union Home Ministry for setting up an integrated communication system for the Indian police. The Rs 97-crore network project would link Delhi and state headquarters, Union Territories and district headquarters using satellite terminals, providing fax, voice and data communication. The connectivity would be extended to police stations across the country with the help of Multi Access Radio Telephones.

The project is the biggest of its kind in India, using state-of-the-art technology, and it would be implemented by Ghaziabad unit of the company in a period of 21 months.

BEL's order book position stood at Rs 4,131.3 crore (Rs 41.31 billion) as of 31 March 2002, 38% higher than Rs 2,995 crore (Rs 29.95 billion) as on 31 March 2001 and 40% higher than Rs 2,850 crore (Rs 28.5 billion) as on 30 September 2001. Moreover, this is expected to grow further during the current financial year.

As on September 2002, the government held 75.86% stake in BEL.

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