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BHELSIA to foray into defence production sector in a year

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Acknowledging the need to diversify their presence and not just restrict their resources to supplying key components for BHEL power projects, BHEL Small and Medium Industries Association (BHELSIA) is planning to foray into the defence manufacturing sector in a year.
At the defence industry development meet organised by the Ministry of Defence in Chennai on Thursday, BHELSIA representatives asserted that the scope and opportunities were wide open to produce critical components at Trichy contributing to the Indian defence sector, particularly in ship building and aerospace sectors.
BHELSIA, with more than 300 small and medium scale industries, has been heavily relying on the public sector unit (PSU) BHEL in Trichy to manufacture critical components in thermal power projects for decades.
The slowdown in thermal power sector has had a cascading effect on operation of BHELSIA members.
"The eligibility to produce components for defence sector has been relaxed to encourage indigenous production to cut down India's defence imports. On the other hand, volume of projects pertaining to thermal power sector has been dwindling in recent years," S Ashok Sundaresan, president of BHELSIA, told TOI.

The eligibility to produce defence components such as minimum turnover slab has been removed by the Union government and even startups may contribute to the country's indigenous production.
In the two-day-long exhibition being held at Chennai, BHELSIA representatives after interacting with defence PSUs and armed forces said that they have gained confidence to produce defence components at Trichy.
"Industries in Coimbatore have already forayed into defence component production, whereas Trichy industries need to evolve as production of defence components with high precision in tier-II cities would promote indigenous production. We are exploring the possibility to produce defence components in Trichy at the earliest, say within 2018," Ashok added.
To evolve from a fabrication unit that supplies components for thermal power projects, BHELSIA initially needs technical and research and development support for which universities and technical institutes in the Trichy belt may contribute.


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