Jun 6, 2010

The Debate on relationship between DRDO and Services was thrown open by remarks of the DRDO chief Dr VK Saraswat when he said that self-reliance in critical defence technologies cannot be achieved by the premier defence R&D organization alone. In a terse statement at an award ceremony, he called upon the three Services to overcome their temptation to induct the latest weaponry from abroad. “The Services … must understand that while the temptation may be overwhelming, to field proven, state-of-art imported systems, they too have a role to play in the economic and industrial growth of the country. No foreign system can be customized to completely address our long term requirement,” said Dr Saraswat, addressing the DRDO Technology Day Awards function. 

Dr Saraswat pointed out that the DRDO cannot force the Armed Forces to opt for the indigenously harnessed advanced weaponry. “DRDO has long been held responsible for the level of self-reliance in defence systems, but it must be understood that the responsibility for self-reliance should be shared by all stakeholders of the Ministry of Defence and cannot be placed on DRDO alone, which neither has the power to impose its products on its customer nor the mandate or capacity to produce the developed systems all by themselves,” said Dr Saraswat. “At the same time Indian Industry has not yet reached the maturity level to take up this responsibility on itself,” he added. 

            Welcoming the Defence Ministry’s initiative to restructure the DRDO following the Rama Rao Committee proposals and the Offset Policy to spur private sector participation in the defence industry, Dr Saraswat allayed the pitfalls of wanton import of weapons and defence hardware. “We … look to the recently instituted Offset Policy of MoD, which should be utilized to bring in high-end technology and quality manufacturing processes into the country and must guard against the pressures of high volume low end build-to-print modules,” he said. 

            Pointing out that the DRDO was always open to partner actively with the Armed Forces, Industry and the Academia, Dr Saraswat, however, sought more freedom for the DRDO to pursue its “primary aim of developing world class weapon systems”. “It is reiterated that DRDO must be given the freedom to choose a production agency based on their ability to absorb technology and carry out value addition after following a transparent procedure,” Dr Saraswat said, adding, “Commercial Pricing cannot always be the overriding factor”. 

            The DRDO chief said that the successful missile development programme and the development of the Light Combat Aircraft ‘LCA Tejas’ has given the country a strong base in the aerospace industry, so much so that most of the international aerospace majors have decided to set up R&D/production facilities in India in the last few years. Dr Saraswat said the DRDO is also actively engaged in combating emerging internal security threats. “In view of the emerging threat scenario in sub-conventional warfare, DRDO has proactively undertaken the task of familiarizing India ’s paramilitary forces with the products and technologies available for their use and plan to launch new initiatives in surveillance, early detection and warning systems to tackle the growing menace,” he said. 

            Dr Saraswat said the DRDO expects to conduct a test flight of the indigenously developed ‘Agni-5’, the entirely solid fuel Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) with a range of 5,000 kms, by next year. “With this, DRDO would have given India a comprehensive indigenous strategic capability, available with only a few nations of the world,” he said. Quoting a study by the reputed independent evaluation agency ‘National Council of Applied Economic Research’, Dr Saraswat, who is also the Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister, refuted criticism that the huge sums of money being pumped into the DRDO during the last five decades has not been productive. “The total production value of the major systems inducted into the Services has reached a (whopping) figure of Rs. 68,000/- crores during the last decade, with the modest R&D investment of about Rs. 3,000/- crores per year,” Dr Saraswat said, adding, “self-reliance index will certainly be enhanced with new major systems like MBT, LCA, Radars and Electronic Warfare Systems being inducted into Services.” 

            Presenting a roadmap, Dr Saraswat said the DRDO’s goals would focus on Space and Cyber Security, Hypersonic Vehicles, Directed Energy Weapons and Smart Materials, Composites and MEMS (Micro-Electromechanical Systems) -based Sensors. “A major R&D Programme on NBC (Nuclear-Biological-Chemical) Defence has been recently sanctioned by the Cabinet Committee on Security,” he said. [Based on MOD India Press release]. 

Corporatisation of the DRDO has been in the offing for long and the implementation is long delayed as the Rama Rao Committee had submitted the report almost two years back and the government has only now taken some action to ensure that the same is implemented in parts. The media is no doubt very skeptical about implementation, but the formation of independent centres under the director general of various disciplines and labs should enhance accountability. More over there is a need for ensuring that there is shedding of excess flab which is also being done and all laboratories which do not have any defence oriented specialization per se are being hived off.  

            The need for greater transparency and integration with the local and foreign R and D firms is also being incorporated to some extent and will bring about more opportunities for collaboration. However what is likely to be questioned is the well entrenched DRDO culture and how this will be transformed into that of the corporates, this aspect may take some time to implement.  

Efficiency and effectiveness of the DRDO has been a matter of debate in India over the years primarily due to inability of the DRDO to deliver which has been a matter of great concern and services in particular are quite antagonistic towards the DRDO. There are problems in project management, customer orientation and also in adequacy of techno managerial expertise in the organisation to fulfill requirements of the services. There is a need for infusion of corporate work culture in the DRDO and hence accountability for without the same it is unlikely to deliver in the days ahead. 
      

The spat between the DRDO and the Armed forces is likely to become ugly with the open accusation by the DRDO chief that the services are looking for imported equipment rather than supporting indigenous one. This is an ongoing, “battle” between the DRDO and the services over a period with the DRDO blaming the forces for not being patient enough to accept indigenously developed products while the Services claiming that the time and QR violations by the DRDO from time to time has forced it to look outside for arms and equipment that is essential to maintain war readiness. The heavy delay in various projects of the DRDO would denote that the services may not be entirely wrong. On the other hand where there has been success by the DRDO such as in the BrahMos the services have been more than willing to accept the same.

The restructuring exercise does not provide any indicators of how the DRDO will meet the technology needs of the defence forces in time. This is the critical area which should have received focus while the current restructuring is an internal rehash of the organization which is a transactional rather than a transformatory exercise, how it will contribute to the organizational goals and objectives is not clear.

            There is some hope of DRDO shedding off non core areas as some of its labs are likely to be hived off to civil agencies. However specific mention of continuance of projects which are seen largely as failed ventures by the environment and the services is rather surprising such as Kaveri aero-engine programme, MBT Arjun Mk-II and Akash Mk-II.

            Hiring an HR agency is also not likely to result in a change in attitude and approach of the DRDO, this will be just a cosmetic exercise rather than one going down to the basic issues of corporatisation of the organization which implies a corporate culture of accountability in terms of delivery in time and to customer satisfaction.

            The seed money provided at Rs 20 million is so limited that it is unlikely to make any impact given that the same will be consumed probably in establishing the commercial arm itself. The need for such an arm is also not understood as the DRDO could have done the same through the existing PSUs or a small cell networking with the industry bodies which it is already doing, for marketing is not a forte of any government organization particularly in the defence sector.

            Overall the approach has been organizational rather than functional; a functional approach would have structured the organization to carry out the primary role of providing technologies to the services. The restructuring is not likely to lead to better engagement with the core customer the services; there is no special thrust in developing an arm which would specifically take care of this aspect.

JUNE 2010