News Analysis India

Tag: Defence Public Sector Undertakings

  • Defence PSUs, Ordinance Factories extends assistance to civil administration to fight surge in COVID  cases 

    Express News Service
    DELHI: Considering the rising need to provide medication to Covid infected patient’s, Defense Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) and Ordnance Factory Board (OFB),  under the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has chipped with COVID Care facilities and are working to provide Oxygen plants to aid the civil administration/state governments across the country. 

    MoD said on Sunday, “A 180-bed COVID care center, with ICU, oxygen, and ventilator support, set up by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is functional in Bengaluru, Karnataka. The DPSU has also prepared a 250-bed facility in Bengaluru and handed over to municipal authorities under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). A 70-bed facility in Koraput, Odisha, and a 40-bed hospital in Nasik, Maharashtra are also operational.”

    Work by HAL is underway to set up a 250-bed COVID care facility in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. It is expected to be operational in the first week of May. Further, HAL is planning to provide more ventilators and oxygen points at Bangalore and Lucknow.

    “The OFB has chipped in with COVID care services, including oxygen beds, at their facilities in 25 places in Maharashtra, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Odisha and Uttarakhand,” added MoD.

    The MoD informed, “OFB has reserved 813 beds out of total strength of 1,405, nearly 60 per cent of its existing strength for COVID-19 patients.”

    These facilities are in Pune, Ambernath, Nagpur, Bhandara, Chanda, Varangaon and Bhusawal in Maharashtra and at Ishapore and Kolkata in West Bengal. Other places where OFB is providing its facilities for COVID care are Kanpur (2), Shahjahanpur (1) and Muradnagar (1) in Uttar Pradesh; Jabalpur (3), Itarsi (1) and Katni (1) in Madhya Pradesh; Avadi (1), Aruvankadu (1) and Tiruchirappalli (1) in Tamil Nadu; Medak (1) in Telangana; Dehradun (1) in Uttarakhand and Badmal (1) in Odisha.

    Aiming to plug the scarcity of Oxygen at government hospitals several DPSUs such as Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL), BEML Limited, Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL), Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers (GRSE) Limited and MIDHANI, have also fast-tracked procurement of oxygen plants to deliver to local government hospitals in different states under CSR.

  • Government plans to divest its stakes from three Defence PSUs  

    Express News Service
    NEW DELHI: The government is planning to decrease its shareholding in three Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) in the future but timeline for execution of this step is not decided yet.

    Shripad Naik, Minister of State (MoS) for Defence on Monday informed, “The Government is planning to decrease shareholding in Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) namely, Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML Ltd)., Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Limited (GRSE) and Mishra Dhatu Nigam Limited (MIDHANI).”

    As for timeline, Naik said, “The completion of a transaction depends on market conditions.  Therefore, it is not possible to predict a timeline.”

    Minister shared this information in the Rajya Sabha in reply to a question asked by Dr Santanu Sen a Rajya Sabha member from West Bengal.

    BEML Ltd is a new addition to the list of DPSUs from which the government is planning to decrease its stakes as GRSE and MIDHANI were part of a prior such step as per which the government has already decreased its shareholding and a total of Rs 26,457.99 crore collected by decrease in shareholding from six PSUs, in last five years, making defence-related equipment.

    Quoting accountability and public ownership as some of the reasons for divestment of stake MoS Defence elaborated, “Policy of disinvestment of minority stake without transfer of management control is being followed for priority sector including defence to unlock value, promote public ownership, to meet the minimum public shareholding norms of SEBI and for ensuring higher degree of accountability.”