BEML is an Indian public sector undertaking (PSU) that stands for Bharat Earth Movers Limited. It is a 'Schedule 'A' Company under the administrative control of the Ministry of Defence, Government of India.
The company was incorporated on May 11, 1964, with the objective of providing total engineering solutions for the defence, earth moving, and infrastructure sectors. Its establishment was aided by the Soviet Union, and it was initially wholly owned and operated by the Ministry of Defence. The problem it solved was the need for indigenous manufacturing of heavy equipment, particularly for mining, construction, and the Indian Railways.
BEML operates through three major business verticals: Mining & Construction, Defence & Aerospace, and Rail & Metro. In the Rail & Metro vertical, it manufactures rolling stock, including metro coaches for cities like Delhi, Bengaluru, and Kolkata, and is involved in manufacturing passenger trains like the Vande Bharat platform. For the Defence sector, it supplies high mobility trucks, bridge systems, and vehicles for missile projects. The company has manufacturing units located in Bengaluru, Kolar Gold Fields (KGF), Mysore, and Palakkad. As a listed company, the Government of India currently holds 54.03% of the shareholding.
BEML is connected to the government's disinvestment policy, as the Government of India gave 'in-principle' approval for the strategic disinvestment of 26% of its shareholding, along with the transfer of management control to a strategic buyer. A significant recent change involved the demerger of its non-core assets into a separate entity, BEML Land Assets Ltd, which was listed on the bourses. This demerger was done to ensure that the strategic buyer for BEML's core business would not acquire its lucrative real estate through the backdoor, thereby facilitating the strategic sale process. The core business, which includes the manufacturing of heavy equipment and defence products, remains with BEML Limited.