Bangalore: Premier Defence public sector undertaking (PSU) Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) on February 18 said it has become the first Defence PSU to acquire the operational status of "Mini Ratna Category-1 (MRC-1)".

The status became operational with the government appointing three non-official, part-time directors, M Rammohan Rao, Director, Indian Institute of Management, N Balakrishnan, Chairman, Division of Information Sciences, Indian Institute of Science and K N Gupta, Comptroller of Certifying Authorities, Minister of Information Technology, Delhi, on BEL board of directors, a company statement said.

Having acquired the Mini Ratna Category-1, BEL now has certain degree of autonomy with regard to capital expenditure, establishing joint venture companies, entering into transfer of technology agreements and implementation of schemes relating to human resources management, it said.

To acquire a Mini Ratna Category-1 status, a public sector undertaking should have made profit continuously in the past three years, the pre-tax profit should have been Rs 30 crore or more in at least once in three year and should have a positive net worth, it was noted.

BEL recorded a turnover of Rs 1715.33 crore and profit after tax of Rs 155.21 crore in 2000-2001. It paid 40 per cent dividend during the last fiscal.

PTI