Home BusinessBEL mulls foray into nuclear power space
Defence PSU Bharat Electronics, which is restructuring its businesses, is planning to enter the nuclear power space, designing and manufacturing instruments.
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"Now, as the nuclear power stations come in, we basically wish to be designer and manufacturer of (nuclear power) instrumentation portion," Ashwani Kumar Datt, chairman and managing director of the Bangalore-headquartered company, told PTI.
Datt said the expenditure on the initiative had not been finalised as the discussion is yet to take place with "the fellows who will finally come and do the nuclear reactors".
Nuclear power instrumentation is one of the areas suggested by consulting firm KPMG, appointed by BEL to help identify future market opportunities for growth.
Datt also said BEL and power equipment maker BHEL are currently studying the financial viability of their proposed joint initiative in solar energy, where the investment by the two companies would be almost Rs 2,500 crore if the PSUs decide to go ahead with the project.
"We are now trying to understand the market and return on the business because large investment is needed in case we decide to do it," he said. "We are at a phase where we have started analysing the business model."
The two companies are also studying the government"s incentives in terms of subsidy and viability of the project.
Though BEL and BHEL propose to hold 50 per cent equity each in the joint initiative, both might decide to shed some stake in favour of a technology provider later, Datt said, adding the two companies are scouting for technology partners.
Company officials said areas such as nuclear power instrumentation, railways, homeland security and solar energy have been identified as new growth engines for BEL.
Datt said BEL is aiming to generate an additional business of Rs 500 crore annually from these new lines of business.
In these relatively new areas of business, BEL is looking to make an investment in the region of Rs 300 crore - Rs 500 crore, as the company already has much of the infrastructure in place.
Some factories would take additional load as the company is in the process of restructuring its businesses.