Multiple committees have been constituted by the government for reforming the DRDO. The reports of the Rama Rao committee and the Ramgopal Rao committee led to some reforms in the working of the organisation, but not much.
Last year, the government set up another committee under Prof. Vijaya Raghavan, with members from the three services, the academia and industry representatives. Though its report, submitted early this month, has not been made available to the public, bits and pieces have emerged here and there, and those are not very encouraging.
As one who has worked for 35 years in DRDO from being an entry-level scientist and superannuated as the director of one of its crucial laboratories that developed cutting-edge technology products, I am pained by the kind of reactions that are spreading in the mainstream and social media. Wrong comparisons are being made of DRDO with the Department of Atomic Energy and the ISRO to show DRDO in a poor light.
Let me start by stating that our scientists too work late into the night, as do space and atomic scientists, to develop technologies and systems. But most people do not understand that the requirements are different.
Atomic scientists work in a totally closed environment, and very little is discussed about their work in the public. In the case of ISRO, it should be noted that they make their plans, develop the systems, produce the systems and use the systems. They are the developers, producers and users of their products.
Not so in the case of the DRDO. DRDO is only a developer of technologies or products. The product, or the product made from the technology, is produced by the industry. And the user of the product is the armed forces. To put it simply, we may develop a rocket launcher; it is productionised by a PSU or a private industry; it is finally used by the Army. For any delay, real or attributed, the industry can blame DRDO; for any flaw in the technical finesse of the system, the user can blame either the DRDO or the maker-industry or both.
But then, one cannot quarrel with it; DRDO ought to understand the reality and work to keep both the industry and the user satisfied.
But blame of the DRDO for delay or flaws in technology could also have inspired otherwise. Foreign vendors with deep pockets have set up offices in Delhi, Mumbai and elsewhere, having hired retired armed forces personnel on their staff so as to liaise with the decision-makers. It is easy for the user to opt for import of the foreign product, or the industry to argue for buying the foreign technology and make the product at home under licence, rather than patiently wait for the DRDO to develop the technology and transfer it to them.
DRDO’s capability has been proven beyond doubt in the case of products for which foreign alternatives are not available. It is well known that nobody sells you ballistic missiles or the technology for ballistic missiles, unless you are a rogue nation like Pakistan. Naturally, the only option is to develop and produce our own ballistic missiles. The ‘Prithvi’ and ‘Agni’ programmes prove that DRDO could develop and deliver in time, to the full satisfaction of the user, when there are no foreign vendors around.
DRDO develops several classes of systems. Let me explain one by one:
(a) Platforms: These are fighter aircraft, helicopters, gliders, battle tanks, ships and submarines.
(b) Weapons: Torpedoes, rockets, missiles and their launchers.
(c) Sensors: used in electronic warfare systems, warheads, for cyber security, robotics and AI etc.,
(d) Small platforms: Drones, unmanned aerial vehicles, remotely-operated aerial vehicles, autonomous underwater vehicles, midget submarines, mini-autonomous underwater vehicles etc.
Often it is over the development of platforms and weapons that the DRDO is shown in poor light, forgetting the fact that its products such as Tejas light combat aircraft, Arjun battle tank, Pinaka multi-barrel rocket launcher are already in service. Most of the ‘weapons’ are of one-time use. A torpedo, once launched, cannot be recovered and reused. These weapons are designed in cooperation with the user, and their drawing, simulation, manufacturing and quality assurance are all executed with them in the loop. As regards sensors, hardly any complaints have been heard from the users about the sensors developed by the DRDO for any kind of environment.
The miniature versions of the system are comparatively of recent development, one can say post-1990s. Only since then have we seen drones and pilotless flying systems being used anywhere in the world. Everyone knows it is a challenge to bring down the weight and size of equipment without compromising its capabilities. Here, project management plays a crucial role in achieving these parameters. At present, more start-ups are getting part of developing these systems, and this will attract more MSMEs, and even larger industries since the quantity requirement will be huge.
The major phases in project execution are- system design, analysis, simulation, drawings & documents, prototype realisation through industry partner, testing, controlled environment trials and finally user trials. For the past 10 years, the DRDO has been cutting down the time taken for the movement of files and number of files. Often the manufacturer delays the delivery of the prototype, but the DRDO gets the blame. When it comes to field trials, everything depends on the climate and the user who does the trial.
If the reason for revamp is only to cut the timeline, one wonders how the committee has proposed to deal with these issues which are beyond the control of the DRDO. If the revamp is intended to bring knowledge centres like academia and the prospective entrepreneurs who are coming out from the academies, they need to be guided in the domain knowledge. Already, attempts are afoot in this direction.
DRDO has established 15 centres of excellence to interact with academia through grants-in-aid funding; then there is the technology development fund (TDF) to work with the industry for the development of technology.
What is needed is to develop an ecosystem with eminent academic institutions and industry partners to develop cutting-edge technologies. Tax concessions may be offered to industries that partner with DRDO and academia in developing defence technology. Only then would a revamp would have any meaning and significance.
The author retired as director of the DRDO’s Naval Science & Technological Laboratory (NSTL) and is currently serving as director, DRDO-Industry-Academia, Ramanujan Centre of Excellence, IIT-M, Chennai.
