Revamp the DRDO

Cut its size and retain the best
by Lt-Gen (retd) Harwant Singh

For a long time, it has been the contention of the armed forces that all is not well with the DRDO. There has been a demand for a science audit of its working. If you are a self-respecting and a proud Indian then at every Republic Day Parade your national pride must take a dip, because almost all of the military equipment on display – after over five decades of effort at self-reliance, indigenous development and production – is imported.

A thorough revamp and review of DRDO has finally been ordered by the Government. The credit for bringing this much delayed action must go to the Parliamentary Committee on Defence.
The sad story is that even after 58 years of effort, the state of the Defence Technology and Industrial Base is such that indigenous development of weapons and equipment capability continues to elude us and India remains the largest importer of defence equipment in the world.
We import even low technology equipment such as rifles (1,00,000 in 1993-94 and even later) snow clothing items, bullet proof jackets, and of course UAVs, tanks, guns, aircraft, anti-tank missiles, a range of other missiles, radars – the list is endless, because the efforts by the DRDO to develop these have been unsuccessful.

The DRDO budget has been 5 to 6 per cent of the defence budget with allocations for major projects such as LCA, Arjun tank, Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP), Advanced Technical Vehicle etc being over and above this budgeted figure. Much of this amount has gone into lavish civil works, seven star messes and foreign tours. There is absolutely no accountability in this organisation. While various projects have shown little or no progress, the project managers have continued to move up the promotion ladder.

There has been little understanding and mutual confidence between the DRDO and the users – the defence services. The DRDO has never spelt out its technological status in relation to the equipment to be developed or any of the necessary defence technologies. With the result the GSQRs (General Staff Qualitative Requirements – features and performance parameters of the desired equipment/weapon system) is prepared without proper interaction with the DRDO, and consequently is pitched higher than the latter’s technological potential. The DRDO never sought the scaling down of the GSQRs to a level which it can handle, in the full knowledge and belief that the project can be dragged on endlessly and that no one will be called upon to account.

Once the GSQR is in its hand, a closed-door activity commences with no further interaction with the users. This lack of interaction with the user during the developmental stage is best illustrated in the case of tank-tracks for the Arjun tank. The head of the then DRDO was a specialist in metallurgy and insisted on fitting the Arjun with an aluminum alloy track; perhaps with a view to reduce the weight.

Now even a grade 3 tank driver would have told him that a 50 ton (Arjun turned out to be nearly 60 tons) tank with a 1400 HP engine moving at high speed and taking sharp turns in rough terrain will rip open an aluminum alloy track. But we wasted more than 3 years and incurred much expenditure before this simple realisation dawned and finally a steel alloy track had to be imported.

There are innumerable other examples of such disconnect between the users and the DRDO. There have been efforts to develop systems where DRDO had no expertise whatsoever. Engines for the Arjun tank and the LCA are ready examples. In the case of Arjun, the development of the engine could have been outsourced to one of the country’s leading diesel engine manufacturers, instead of doing years of experimentation at a huge cost, ending in complete failure.

The DRDO in stand-alone mode has achieved little and will not be able to meet the future needs of the armed forces. It has shown little capability in even reverse engineering of comparatively simple equipment. It needs to have a strategic tie-up with the R&D of some advanced country.

This realisation dawned on the government and it formed an inter-governmental commission for military technology cooperation with the Russian government and later with some others for joint development of cutting-edge defence technologies. Cooperation in military technologies between two or more entities is the business of sharing and building on strengths of each other.

Given the present state of talent in the DRDO, it will turn out to be a one-sided affair ending in, essentially, transfer of technology and the attendant cost. Perhaps down-sizing and restructuring of DRDO has become unavoidable.

If the newly formed committee for recommending changes in DRDO is to make a positive impact on the future indigenous development of defence technologies, production of defence equipment within the country and export of defence equipment, it need to consider these measures:
Close down those establishments of DRDO which are busy re-inventing the wheel, and those whose tasks can best be done in the private sector; down size the DRDO and retain only the best talent. Offer VRS to the dead wood with which the DRDO is packed to the brim; do away with most of the Defence Ordnance Factories.

Restructure the MoD as an integrated organization consisting of bureaucrats, defence services staff, scientists and financial experts for better coordination, cutting out duplication and triplication of work, improved efficiency, speedy decision making, integrated defence planning and defence technology development.

Implement the Arun Singh Committee report as accepted by the cabinet and adopt the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) system. Place DRDO with the CDS for mutual confidence and better interaction with the services; bring about accountability at every level; where required, get foreign technical experts to work in India; make service in the DRDO really attractive.



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