Thursday, February 20 2014: Public sector unit Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) will invest $100 million (Rs 6.2 billion), with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in jointly developing electronic warfare products.
S.K. Sharma, the BEL chairman and managing director said, “We will invest $100 million from ensuing fiscal year (2014 to 2015) over the next five years for funding joint programmes with DRDO to develop electronic warfare products required for our armed forces,” at the third International Conference on Electronic Warfare (EWCI 2014) in Bangalore, as reported by the IANS.
BEL manufactures and supplies a range of products, including radars, electronic warfare system, sound and vision broadcasting, missiles and sonars to the Indian army, navy and air force. It is the country’s leading electronics company with nine manufacturing facilities across the country.
The PSU, with the DRDO, jointly developed a mobile integrated electronic warfare system, the ‘Samyukta’. The Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL) and the army’s signal corps for tactical battlefield actively use this system. Covering a wide range of frequencies, the system is used for surveillance, analysis, interception, direction finding and position fixing, listing, prioritising and jamming of all communication and radar signals.
BEL sold electronic warfare systems to the armed forces of up to Rs 20 billion over the years, and the company estimates its market potential at nearly Rs 100 billion with the growing requirement for such warfare by the armed forces.
Air Marshal M. Matheswaran, of the Integrated Defence Staff said at the same conference, that information operation and information warfare are inseparable. He added that “armed forces tend to put electronic warfare on back burner and information operation in the forefront. Gathering information, building upon that information against adversary by deception or jamming gives tactical advantage,” in the same report.
