BEL pays 106 per cent dividend

Mumbai: Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) has posted a net profit of Rs 583 crore for the year ended March 31, 2006 as compared to Rs 446.32 crore for the previous financial year. Total income has increased from Rs 3334.37 crore in FY05 to Rs 3649.43 crore in FY06.

The board has recommended a final dividend of 106 per cent (Rs 10.60 per equity share of Rs 10 each) in addition to the interim dividend of 40 per cent paid in November 2005.

The navratna PSU also added nine gems to its board. Nine eminent professionals have been appointed to the BEL board following guidelines from SEBI and the department of public enterprises that 50 per cent of the board of the company should be independent directors.

The newly-appointed non-official (independent) directors are: Bhupindar Singh, former CMD of the State Trading Corporation of India; N Balakrishnan, chairman of information science and services division of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; Ashok Jhunjhunwala, professor (electrical engg) at IIT, Chennai; M Rammohan Rao, dean, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad; KG Ramachandran, former CMD of BHEL; V Bhaktavatsalam, former MD of Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Limited; Goverdhan Mehta, former director of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; S Sadagopan, director, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore and S P Parashar, director, IIM, Indore.

BEL has seven whole-time directors and two part-time directors. The seven whole-time directors include chairman managing director Y Gopala Rao, director (finance) PRK Hara Gopal, director (R&D) SK Mehta, director (Bangalore complex) Basavarajaiah, director (other units) A Muralidhar, director (personnel) ML Shanmukh, and director (marketing) VVR Sastry. Government nominees Alok Perti (joint secretary - ship yards) and Lt Gen Davinder Kumar, Signal Officer-in-Chief are the two part-time directors.