Chairman and managing director of BEL Dr VK Koshy informed here that the deal would mean a new direction and diversified business for the company, which is entering the IT sector. `I can't give you the company names with whom we are engaged in serious talks. We have entered a crucial stage and expect to finalise the deal with a foreign company each in the area of IT-related activities and opto-electronics later this year', Mr Koshy said.

He said BEL is presently working on - under a major programme on IT security - developing security modules for IT networks with wide applications not only for defense forces, but also for the civil world, and expected to offer the product to the market in the middle of this year.

Mr Koshy said encryption in IT networks in India is mostly imported, mainly from the US and noted that `anything coming from outside the country in encryption area has certain level of compromise already with that'.

He said the company believed that the product being developed by its design team will have higher level of security and protection to its customers.

As part of the IT initiatives, Mr Koshy said the company has already put in place manufacture of motherboards with Intel chips and they were being supplied to computer manufacturers through direct channels and Intel distributors.

Now, BEL had drafted a new engineering design team which would directly engineer new generation Intel chips for motherboards without depending on that engineering from elsewhere, he said.

`Earlier, we were getting it from Intel US and Taiwan. Now we are able to do ourselves...which means that we are in the market same time as the motherboards are available in the US or Taiwan. Earlier the time lag was one year...now it will be available within two or three months', Mr Koshy explained. He said new such motherboards would be available in the Indian market in April this year, adding that BEL planned to step up production of motherboards using Intel chips from the present 5,000 per month to 10,000 per month.

Responding to questions, Mr Koshy said the company is expected to have a good growth of 15 per cent in the current financial year (2000-2001) and expects to `maintain the trend'.

Exports from BEL during 2000-2001 is expected to be in the region of Rs 30 crore to Rs 35 crore, and the figure in the next financial year is projected to be Rs 50 crore to Rs 60 crore as it had order delivery schedule during that period, he said.

On BEL still being in the US restrictive list, Mr Koshy said supplies to customers have remained unhindered as it had found alternatives.

(PTI)