A man approaches the automatic fare collection gates at Ghatkopar Metro station in Mumbai. (TOI photo)

BENGALURU: Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), a defence PSU that has been consistently diversifying, on Saturday claimed it will install fare collection gates (FCGs) at various metro stations in the country, and supply hand-held devices to road transport authorities and portable toll collection systems as part of a national project that envisages a single mobility card for people across the country.

"At present the FCGs at metro stations are closed loop, allowing only cards issued by the respective metro authorities, and these are imported. We'll be installing gates, developed indigenously that will allow a Delhi metro user to use the same card in Bengaluru or Kochi," BEL CMD Gowthama MV said.

He added that the firm is also hoping for orders to supply portable toll collection systems and hand-held devices to be used by road transportation authorities-in buses, for example-which can then be integrated. "This will help users have just one card that they can use while travelling in a metro or any road transport," Gowthama said.

Government-run State Bank of India will be the lead bank in implementing this project, while all other nationalised banks too will have a role, he said, adding that all these initiatives are part of the National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) mission announced by the Centre.

To begin with, Gowthama said BEL will be installing a couple of gates in each metro station, and eventually these numbers would increase. As part of its non-defence portfolio, the PSU has also begun assembling satellites for the Indian Space Research Organisation ( Isro ), develop products for homeland security, technologies for fire control and so on.

BEL has already completed assembly of one Isro satellite and Gowthama said the PSU was hopeful of getting more satellites in the current financial year. As of April 1, 2019 BEL had an order book of Rs 51,798 crore, of which only Rs 3,100 crore came from non-defence areas.

Among its major customers are the Indian Navy with an order of Rs 25,000 crore, army (Rs 9,000 crore) and the Indian Air Force (Rs 8,800 crore).

