Article Posted on : - Jun 15, 2011

NEW DELHI (PTI): India’s public sector undertaking Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) is eyeing eight per cent of the over $10 billion business opportunities arising out of contracts for defence acquisitions.

Offsets clause in the defence procurement mandates that foreign vendors bagging defence deals worth over Rs 300 crore have to invest back at least 30 per cent of the worth of the deal in Indian defence, civilian aerospace or homeland security sectors.

Under this clause, India is expected to sign defence deals worth over Rs 50,000 crore in the next five years.

“We are looking to bag business worth around eight per cent of the opportunities arising due to offsets,” BEL Chairman and Managing Director Ashwani Kumar Datt said.

He said though there were several big ticket defence deals going to take place in the near future, BEL would look to secure around $300 million worth of this market.

BEL has already supplied equipment for the anti submarine warfare P-8I aircraft as part of the offsets commitments of the US defence major Boeing, which is selling eight of these planes under a $2.1 billion deal.

Asked about recent reports suggesting that the PSU had supplied inferior night vision devices to paramilitary forces, Datt said, “We have conveyed our response. We are certain that the quality of products supplied by us is good and meets all specifications. Commercially there is lot of rivalry from Indian and foreign companies.”

“BEL is doing well in business and if competitors think they have to take away some business from us, they need to work and sometimes even sabotage,” he said.

The BEL CMD said if established PSUs such as BEL are "weakened", such attacks may hurt the country.