Bharat Electronics Ltd ( BEL) has developed a tablet PC that would cost $70-75 (around Rs3,000) apiece for the Ministry of Rural Development's poverty survey.
Although it is not a prime product for the Defence electronics behemoth, it will supply six lakh pieces this year, most of them expected to be delivered in record time by end-November, BEL's Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Ashwani Kumar Datt, said.
The order for the tablets and the survey of people below the poverty line would fetch Rs1,000 crore for BEL this year. “What was unique about the first quarter the just ended April-June period] was that all the orders we got worth Rs1,000 crore were in the civilian sector. Normally, we cannot imagine a civil order of this size in Q1,” Mr Datt said.
The tablets account for a quarter of the Ministry's order. “This will mean 15% of our targeted turnover this year. It should boost our civil sector business and this fiscal should see a relatively better [but one-time] civilian contribution than in other years,” he said.
Normally, BEL generates 80% of its revenue from military supplies such as radars, detection and communication devices; its turnover for the year ended March 2011 was Rs5,500 crore; the 2011-12 guidance is for Rs6,200 crore.
At 3.29 pm Bharat Electronics was trading at Rs1664, down by 2.36%, with a volume of 5247 shares on the BSE.