BEML Limited

BEML Limited was incorporated in May 1964 with Soviet assistance and has spent six decades building heavy machinery for three markets that have little to do with one another. Bengaluru is home. The Government of India holds a little over half the equity, the rest trades on the National Stock Exchange and the BSE, and the company reports to the Ministry of Defence with close to 7,000 employees spread across manufacturing complexes at Kolar Gold Fields, Mysore, Palakkad and Bengaluru. Turnover has passed 4,300 crore rupees, against the five crore the company recorded in its first full year of 1965.

Mining and construction is the largest vertical by volume, with more than 32,500 dozers, dumpers and excavators supplied over the years. The current catalogue covers BH series rear dump trucks, BE series hydraulic excavators, BD series bulldozers, BG series motor graders, wheel loaders, wheel dozers, pipe layers, tyre handlers and water sprinklers for opencast sites. Underground mines get side discharge loaders, load haul dumpers, mine cruisers, battery operated locomotives and granby cars. The company built walking draglines and electric rope shovels for the coal industry in earlier decades, and it still makes its own engines, hydraulics, transmissions and powerline aggregates rather than buying them in, which is unusual for an Indian equipment maker.

Defence and aerospace is the vertical that brings BEML into a supplier directory. Around 8,500 high mobility vehicles derived from the Tatra design have gone to the armed forces in configurations from 4x4 to 12x12, adapted into bridge layers, field artillery tractors and medium and heavy recovery vehicles. Add pontoon mainstream bridge systems, the Sarvatra multi span mobile bridge that crosses wet and dry gaps of up to 75 metres at military load class 70, armoured recovery vehicles including the WZT-3, the armoured recovery and repair vehicle for the Arjun tank, engineering mine ploughs, tank transportation trailers, the Gaur medium bullet proof vehicle, milrail coaches and wagons, and air base ground support equipment such as aircraft towing tractors, weapon loading trolleys, the Bheema multi purpose weapon loader and crash fire tenders. The Mysore aerospace unit also makes motor casings for the quick reaction surface to air missile.

Rail and metro is the third leg, and the oldest by output. More than 18,000 mainline passenger coaches, 900 electrical multiple units and 1,750 metro cars have left BEML plants, along with stainless steel EMUs, mainline and diesel multiple units, freight wagons, overhead equipment inspection cars, treasury vans and sleeper trainsets for the Vande Bharat programme. A spare parts and services arm supports the installed base. Three verticals, one balance sheet. The common thread is heavy fabrication, powerline aggregates and a dealer and depot network that all three verticals share.