With new R&D unit, BEL to work for cutting arms import

A new research and development centre built by Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) is part of a larger effort to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign arms.

BEL has invested Rs 220 crore into the 45,000- square-metre facility set up on 26 acres at Jalahalli, which it calls the Product Development and Innovation Centre. Gowtama M V, Chairman and Managing Director, BEL, said the centre’s priority was “import substitution.”

“The centre has been established as an innovation hub for the development of critical and cutting-edge technologies, an R&D facility that is envisaged to be on a par with the best in the world, driving our indigenisation efforts, aimed at self-reliance,” he said.

The facility, which will house 750 engineers, has the tools and means necessary to “develop, prototype and generate manufacturing documents for systems and subsystems,” which would be used in the development of larger systems, BEL said.

These systems and products range from communications gear to electro-optics and lasers, to radar and sonar, to computational and navigational systems, to cryptographic, engineering and energy systems, the company said in a statement. In addition to the actual hardware being created, one critical area which the new centre hopes to address is the focus on creating intellectual properties, said a BEL officer.

India’s protection of its intellectual property rights has been among the worst in the world, despite a 2016 initiative by the Union government, called the National Intellectual Property Rights Policy, which aims to reduce copyright infringement.

In an annual report by the Global Innovation Policy Centre of the US Chamber of Commerce which was released in February, the Chamber gave the country a rating of 16.22 out of 45, which while being better than its score of 8.75 out of 35 in 2017, earned criticism from the Chamber that there are still barriers to “licensing and technology transfer, including strict registration requirements.”