New Delhi: Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) has paid a final dividend of Rs 231.69 crore to the government for the financial year 2018-19. The amount is payable on the shares held by the government.
BEL's Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) MV Gowtama presented the cheque of dividend to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday.
The Interim Dividend of 170 per cent (on the value of Re 1 per equity share) was paid to the government in February and March. With this, BEL has now paid a total dividend of 340 per cent for the financial year 2018-19.
BEL has registered a turnover of Rs 11,789 crore during 2018-19 with a record growth of 17 percent over the previous year. The profit before tax (PBT) was Rs 2,703 crore and profit after tax was Rs 1,927 crore (PAT). The company also recorded an export turnover of Rs 153 crore.
BEL is a Navaratna PSU and India's foremost defence electronics company. BEL is a multi-product, multi-technology, multi-unit conglomerate which supplies over 350 products in the areas of defence products like Radars, Missile Systems, Military Communications etc and non-defence products like Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) and solar products.
BEL has a three-tier research and development (R&D) setup comprising development and engineering (D&E) divisions at its 9 units; product development and innovation centre (PD&IC), a centralised facility to cater for new product (sub-system) development requirements of all units (sub-units) and central research labs (CRLs) at Bengaluru and Ghaziabad for carrying out futuristic, cutting-edge research.
Though defence continues to be the mainstay of BEL, the company has made an impact on civilian life through its diversified product mixes such as solar traffic signals and EVMs. The Army, Navy, Air Force, Paramilitary, Coast Guard, Police, Department of Telecommunications and Election Commission of India are the main clients of BEL.