How the earth moved for BEML.

Byline: Madhumathi D.S.

The year 2012 is surely not a time that BEML Ltd can forget or get over easily.

This is its year of missed business targets, of being in the limelight for the wrong reasons. Its key customer a the Army Chief a has bad-mouthed its products and a miffed company has crossed swords with him legally. A time of roil, when its outgoing CEO is under suspension.

The defence PSU has also seen a decade of change and a sort of culture shock. Until ten years back, the then Bharat Earth Movers Ltd was a quiet ame-too' government company. Less known, not seen and happy to be just producing bulldozers, mining machinery, rail coaches and hardy military trucks. (It was the first Indian company to make mining and rail equipment; it still does and is entrenched in those areas.) The other two Bangalore-based Defence PSU siblings, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd and Bharat Electronics Ltd, were far more visible than BEML.

In late 2002, the then Chairman and Managing Director of six years retired and a rank outsider took charge. Since then BEML has altered its name, changed the way it functions, talked big and leapt into business areas it never earlier imagined a such as to …