The Hindu Business Line : Antony for unity among politicians

The Defence Minister, Mr A.K. Antony, lighting the lamp at the stone laying ceremony for Bharat Electronics Ltd’s production support centre at Kinfra Hi-Tech Park at Kalamassery in Kochi on Wednesday.

Our Bureau

Kochi, Nov. 26 The Defence Minister, Mr A.K. Antony, has called upon the political leaders in Kerala to jointly work for development projects irrespective of their political affiliations in order to attract more investments to Kerala from the Union Government.

The leaders in the State should make use of the right political environment at the Centre and make collective efforts to get more projects for Kerala.

“From my side, I assure you that not only defence but even other departments could also extend their support to Kerala,” he said while speaking after laying the foundation stone of the Product Support Centre of Bharat Electronics Ltd at Kalamassery near Kochi on Wednesday.

Mr Antony pointed out that the recent success in getting projects to the State such as Brahmos unit at Thiruvananthapuram, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd at Kasargod and BEL unit in Kalamassery is the result of the team work between his ministry and the State Industries Department.

He said that BEL, the leading manufacturer and supplier of electronic components for the defence establishment, is setting up the Product Support Centre. With the setting up of this Centre, the State Government owned electronic company Keltron will benefit, he said, adding that BEL is already giving a good number of orders for Keltron and it will move up with the completion of the centre.

Electronic hub

Speaking on the occasion, the State Industries Minister, Mr Elamaram Kareem, said the State Government is planning to make Kochi as an electronic hub of Kerala. The Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation is going ahead with its plan to acquire around 1,000 acres of land in Kochi for the purpose. Mr V.V.R. Sastry, Chairman and Managing Director, BEL, said that the unit at Kalamassery will address the product support activities for the Indian Navy, National Physical and Oceanographic Lab (NPOL) of DRDO, Cochin Shipyard and BEL’s outsourcing partner Keltron.

The centre will function as Product Support Centre with electronic maintenance labs, repair centres and necessary instruments. Production facilities of various Keltron units will be utilised for providing manufacturing support for R&D projects.

BEL and NPOL have been collaborating successfully in the field of underwater systems for the past three decades. Ship and submarine Sonars have been developed jointly and have entered into service in most of the Indian platforms.

Approaches like concurrent engineering have been adopted in the past to reduce the cycle of time of induction by the Indian Navy. Establishing a support centre at Kochi will further facilitate achieving the ambitious targets for the indigenous sonar programme, he said.

BEL proposes to supply radars, communication systems, electronic warfare systems, fire control systems and combat management systems for the proposed indigenous aircraft carrier of the Navy to be built at Cochin Shipyard. The installation, commissioning and product support for this will be made from this support centre, he said.