NEW DELHI: It’s finally time for defence minister A K Antony to decide whether he wants to let Defence Research and Development Organisation(DRDO)’s time and cost overruns persist or initiate the long-delayed process of transforming it into an organisation capable of delivering cutting-edge weapon systems to the armed forces.

Antony will later this month get the final roadmap for DRDO’s restructuring as proposed by the P Rama Rao panel and subsequently vetted by a high-level committee led by defence secretary Pradeep Kumar.

“After several meetings, the defence secretary committee, which also had representation from Army, Navy and IAF as well as other stake-holders, will submit its recommendations to Antony before January-end. The aim is to make DRDO, which has a budget of Rs 8,481 crore this year, more effective,” said a top official.

Experts, however, say ‘mere tinkering’ will simply not do any longer. Instead, DRDO and its 51 labs need a drastic overhaul, along with a strong push for joint ventures and private sector participation to ensure India develops a robust industrial-military infrastructure. “For a country like India which has global aspirations and the third-largest standing armed forces in the world, it’s very embarrassing that over 70% of its military requirements have to be imported,” said a senior officer.

The Rama Rao report, on its part, stresses DRDO should concentrate only on 8 to 10 ‘critical technologies’ of ‘strategic importance’ instead of also venturing into making juices, mosquito repellents, titanium dental implants and the like. For this, a dozen or so of DRDO’s 51 labs should be hived off to other ministries and the rest reorganized into five basic clusters — naval systems, aero-systems, combat systems, weapon systems and electronic warfare systems.

Interestingly, another key recommendation is to create a Defence Technology Commission to allow DRDO to have a greater say.


Source: TOI