Monday, August 06, 2012

The ‘BEL’ that tolls for India’s intellectual capital

BEL was set up to develop and nurture young talent and be a world class organisation that caters to india’s unique defence needs.Angshuman Paul of b&E analyses how far have they succeeded

It’s a lazy winter afternoon when I reach the Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) Hospital located in a sprawling area of nearly 705 acres in the Jalahalli campus of Bengaluru. The activities in the hospital are in stark contrast to the air of general lethargy that I have found in most PSU hospitals, especially around the lunch hour. The place is abuzz with activity. Patients are normally the more impatient lot, and generally the most fleeced lot when it comes to medical expenses. It was not, therefore, surprising for me to see quite peaceful ‘patients’ lining up for their checkups – the BEL employees have to pay just Rs.5 per month to avail of the facilities of this immensely well-equipped hospital, which has 152 doctors working 24x7. Just as BEL was set up to take care of the specific needs of India’s military, the township of BEL was special, when one considers the purpose behind its formation. It’s said that Jawaharlal Nehru wanted to nurture the fresh young talent of India and that was his key objective behind the setting up this township in 1954. Five and a half decades since its inception, the BEL township has played a major role in the social development of its inhabitants and taken care of them in key areas. This is palpable when I walk down the Bangalore unit of BEL – located in a sprawling area of nearly 705 acres, which hosts 1,600 houses and has many public utility buildings like schools, colleges, bank, post office and telegraph office. Two decades back, the existing honchos of BEL also decided to hive off the HMT premises from the township with the support of the Government. They felt that HMT’s age-old premises won’t help the township to become a green and pollution free township.

“Any complaint pertaining to sanitation, electricity, maintenance and water supply is attended to in 24 hours,” I am told by Sati – a teacher in the BEL School who has been in the township for two decades. She and some other senior personnel of BEL (like Keshav Kumar, Manager, Corporate Communication, who shells out almost Rs.15,000 for the stay in the quarters at the BEL Township) feel that the environment offered by the township is priceless. BEL apparently has also been successful in controlling water, air and noise pollution and provides a pollution-free environment. Also, like a typical PSU, the township provides grants and other CSR initiatives. And the township also has a cultural centre – Kalyana Mandira, which can accommodate as many as 570 people. Kalyana Mandira has 9 linguistic associations, and it commemorates festivals like Gandhi Jayanthi and even Children’s day.

Critically, any efforts to enrich new talent – the reason why Nehru had set this place up – aren’t really noticeable. This is not to say to say that residents disagreed with my postulation. Nehru had pointed out in his popular book ‘Discovery of India’ that a township or a locality should focus on enriching the talents of the children as they would by representing tomorrow’s India. I’m educated by M. S. Geetha Kumar that 50 years back, Bharat Electronics Educational institution (BEEI) was formed with this mission. He should know; he’s the Administrative Manager of BEEI. Kumar continues, “We even have the Nehru Centenary Scholarship to encourage and provide financial assistance to meritorious children and to motivate their talent.” He does accept though that the scholarship benefit is still limited to the children of SC/ST employees. One needs to see that in the context that every year, more than Rs.50 lakhs are spent on the schools.

With a spend of $30 billion, India ranks 10th in the world’s list of spenders on defence (according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Year Book 2009) and this public sector undertaking has been thriving on the crest of this exorbitant spending thrust. During the year 2008-09, BEL achieved a turnover of RS.46.24 billion with a PAT of Rs.7.46 billion and Chairman Ashwani Kumar Datt is leaving no stone unturned for a CAGR of 15% for this fiscal. Moreover, being a Navratna Defence PSU, a hefty portion of defence expenditure is canalised to BEL in the name of making India self-reliant in the defence sphere. Around 86% of BEL’s sales comes from defence sales and at present, around 5% of the turnover is spend on R&D, which the group plans to increase to 10%. But still, the vision of achieving global competency in defence and professional electronics is far away. In the last two years, BEL has earmarked an investment of Rs.300 crore towards updating its two manufacturing facilities at Bengaluru and Panchkula. This is slated to help them in their latest export thrust, which has enabled them to bag orders like M/s Finacantieri of Italy. A thrust is also required to honour the company’s promise of offering a high quality of life to its township residents. Consider the township’s Priyadarshini Bakery – run by Karnataka Woman Multipurpose Society, which supplies bread to all the BEL employees. After 40 years of its set up, I notice that the bakery still doesn’t offer a hygienic working environment.


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