Amitav Ranjan and
Shiv Aroor had opened a can of worms, in Indian Express, by
reporting on India’s DRDO, which also had raised questions in
Parliament. The duo tabled progress cards of DRDO’s military
projects for the public to judge, who in the final analysis, was to
bear the financial burden for defence. They had demanded
accountability and a modicum of transparency.
In his keynote
address at MOD’s Defence Economics Seminar held on 15 Nov, India’s
Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), V N Kaul who
has fiduciary responsibility for DRDO’s spending,
indicated that
India’s DRDO was not subject to transparent external audits. Other
speakers suggested that DRDO should no longer hide behind veils of
secrecy for its projects but should devise methods which permitted
CAG to maintain confidentiality when it is essential. Regrettably it
is a fact that many large projects that
DRDO undertook have not fructified and have witnessed
questionable time and cost over runs.
Nine years ago Navy
Chief Vishnu Bhagwat demanded an audit of India’s hugely expensive
Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) nuclear submarine project, but he
was sacked for fear of exposing details of the still classified
project. This has deterred others from raising the issue of a
performance audit, and DRDO’s projects have become holy cows, but it
is a fact that scientists are known to be poor project managers.
The somewhat over
critical assessment of the DRDO by IE is an opportune issue for
debate. The country’s manufacturing sector has matured with capable
capacities and investment in foreign factories, and so there is
scope for them to take on some DRDO tasks. With a slight change in
practices and collaboration with local and foreign industry, and
insertion of technology, the concatenation of production facilities,
talents and well equipped laboratories that
DRDO has built up, can now deliver better.
If the recently
instituted mandatory 30% MOD offset policy in imports of over Rs 300
crores, is extended to include high end defence technology, another
wide window of opportunity can emerge. India is an attractive and
leading defence importer of $5b per year. MOD has sorely missed the
bus, by not including offsets in the massive $4b Scorpene deal. Such
a step would have been in
India’s
national interests, though some overruns and failures in research
projects will have to be accepted, as this is a world wide
phenomenon.
There exists yet
another serious lacuna in
India’s
higher defence setup. There is no single accountable Commander in
Chief, and it is the diffused Cabinet control method of
responsibility, scripted into article 75 of the Constitution that
ensues. Hence not much attention is paid to this vital subject by
the busy Prime Minister, who leaves it to the MOD and invariably a
junior Minister is placed in charge of
DRDO. Even in Japan
which is a bicameral democracy like ours, the Prime Minister is
constitutionally made accountable as the C in C for all defence
matters.
In India only the
ATV and nuclear projects are under the PMO. In UK which does not
have a written constitution, the PM is accountable. To exacerbate
the situation the three Armed Forces Chiefs are autonomous, and the
Government has not even specified the core competencies of each
service leading to duplication in many defence spheres like UAVs,
helicopters, missiles, special forces, anti air defence and EW,
which had proved more challenging and expensive for DRDO to manage
individual needs. The QRs setting methodology for common equipment
and doctrines, are also varied. The obvious benefits of economies of
scale and standardisation are also precluded.
It was therefore
interesting to read a young
America
returned MP Milind Deora’s views in an editorial page piece on 21st
Nov on the management of DRDO. His piece began with a laudable
recommendation to emulate the US
DARPA model, which is a purely R & D and design agency, unlike
DRDO which
took upon itself to become a manufacturing agency, for which it was
not qualified. That set Parkinson’s ‘law of expansion’ into motion,
so we have a high scientist to tail ratio. This may have been fait
accompli in 1958, as Indian industry could not have taken up the
challenge of production like USA’s huge industry did, and our needs
in number of systems were limited. FFE was short and policies of
indigenization and import substitution, were the credo.
Changes are now
possible as Indian defence industry led by Larsen and Tubro, Tatas
and Kirloskars as examples, have matured but it will also require
that India’s archaic Officials Secrets Act, 1923 be revised to make
civilians privy and accountable for classified data. DRDO needs to
stop reinventing the wheel and farm projects to industry in the
food, IT and communication sectors and shed laboratories that are no
longer functional or cost effective. The Services also need to
monitor the projects from an ab initio stage.
All this is very
easily said but it was Ernest Hemmingway who insisted that
journalism is the end of a good cause. This requires political will.
Yet in defence of DRDO, much has been achieved in
India’s nuclear arena, ships, avionics and sub systems and
some strategic fields, so all is not lost. In many ways the DRDO of
India is a reflection of most of
India’s government
organizations and loss making PSU’s of days gone by. Many DRDO labs
became unwieldy structures, were poorly managed with no checks or
balances and with political influences, not to mention the arms
dealers lobbies that operate in India and offer sops to politicians
and encourage imports and decry indigenous projects.
The decision to
make Prithvi a liquid fuelled missile which is now being corrected
in Prithvi-III was taken to ensure employability for the many
scientists and workers employed in the field at Hyderabad. It is no
wonder the DRDO failed to deliver on many of the projects except
those that were closely monitored especially by the Navy. The
improvements and resurrection of the SU-30MKI from a old SU-27 is an
example. The Navy has a unique Weapons Electronics and Engineering
Establishment, WEESE, at Delhi which is a mini DRDO in itself,
silently audits and assists DRDO projects and shipyards, while
Navy’s design bureau with 50 years of experience and 300 naval
constructors has contributed. The Navy also insisted that production
after design, should not be entrusted to DRDO or Ordnance factories,
as that combination can be very difficult to
manage
professionally for
any project.
Some DRDO heads
have also behaved like satraps under the veil of secrecy, and built
a slew of 39 lavish laboratories all across India along with
laudable infrastructure and now possess a most imposing HQ in New
Delhi, that we can be proud of. The DRDO has recruited a bevy of
scientists who are exposed to modern technologies and some of them
have done remarkable work in the guided missile, sonar and
electronics fields, while others including deadwood passed on from
the services have whiled away their time, as promotions are mainly
time bound. Earlier western technology was consciously denied to
DRDO because of sanctions, but these are lifting. The services must
admit they failed to constantly monitor, guide and spoon feed
projects like the Arjun MBT, the 7.62mm INSAS rifle and LCA but came
in at the preliminary trial stages, with criticism. This lesson
seems to have been learnt.
Finally, the
temples the DRDO has built can now be restructured for projects to
come alive. If the LCA which already has the GE-404 engine gets the
MIG 29 multimode radar and weapon suites amalgamated from the
foreign supplier of the 126 fighter contract, like Sweden’s SAAB did
for Gripen with BAE, the LCA may still meet its target. Singapore
had seen LCA’s potential and seriously offered investment and joint
design and production in 1990, but DRDO was insistent the production
would be only in India and we missed an opportunity. Such overtures
can be revived, as the LCA has a good level of flying technology
with many unique features. Only fresh management can bring the
escalating costs down. The wheels that DRDO has invented can
certainly be repolished and made to revolve easily. It’s the will
that is needed and India is no longer the pygmy it was, when DRDO
was formed in 1958.
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