Indian Defence Review

Accolades for the Navy

The Navy comes in for many accolades from DRDO. It is held up as a shining example of what indigenisation can achieve. By no means would I like to suggest that it is easier to design ships than it is to design supersonic multi-role aircraft, but I do feel that the start points are much simpler when it comes to ships. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the Navy has been more successful in indigenisation than its sister services. It has fared even better when it comes to fitment of indigenous subsystems on naval ships. The Naval Physical and Oceanographic Lab has provided the Navy with a great measure of self-reliance in sensors especially sonars of all kinds. Most Indian Navy ships are therefore fitted with indigenous sonar systems and little or no import involved.

In the years immediately after Independence, the Government did not focus as much on the Navy as it did on the Army and the Air Force. For many years the Navy was just allowed to drift (pun intended) along. I believe that as far as self-reliance is concerned this may well have been a blessing in disguise. The Navy understood the limitation of simply leaving everything to the DRDO and thus involved themselves with all stages of their indigenous projects. The Navy retains its own design personnel, and former naval officers are at the helm of the ship building yards.

Shortcomings at Service HQ

This leads me to the problem faced by Service HQ. It is a problem of limited tenure and a lack of continuity at the Headquarters. Directorates dealing with Plans normally handle stuff that have a long gestation period. As the Advanced Light Helicopter and the Light Combat Aircraft show, such projects because of delays take decades to come to fruition. Yet the officers who conceive the operational requirements have only a limited tenure of two to four years at the Service HQ as do the officers who have to monitor the projects thereafter. When new officers takeover they bring new ideas, and over a period of some years, coupled with advances in technology, these ideas become mandatory requirements. When changes are made, their impact is often not fully understood. For one it would always lead to delays, as it is not possible to freeze the design while the additional recommendations are under consideration. This, I guess, is a shortcoming that we would have to bear, as the IAF cannot afford its officers decade long tenures at Air HQ. The only solution would be to adhere to laid down PDCs. No slippage would then mean no modifications or changes being asked for.

Warfare it must be remembered is dynamic. Armed Forces the world over are accused of fighting the last war. However, to fight the next war requires visualisation of the future battlefield and development of weapons and tactics appropriate to such scenarios. While visualisation of a future battlefield is not a major problem in itself, fielding weapons for that battlefield is an onerous task, especially if last generation weapons are still on the drawing board. It is for those who are responsible for the provision of weapon systems to ensure that the armed forces are equipped with the proper weapon systems and in the right timeframes to handle futuristic security challenges facing the country.

Review Committee

The afore-mentioned eminent personality who had accused the IAF of killing DRDO projects had also stated that the next time one heard a bad report on DRDO the finger could safely be pointed at the Indian Army and the IAF. Unfortunately, the ‘bad report’ now comes not from the Services but from a series of articles in the Indian Express and from Parliament itself.

India has invested a lot in terms of money and time in DRDO but the benefits have not accrued to the extent desired.

The points that are being made are that there is a vast scope for greater coordination and interaction between the Service HQ and the DRDO and that officers from the Services should be looked upon as part of the design team and not as outsiders. Further, there is a need for more innovation in Defence and not enough is being done. Biocon’s Kiran Mazumdar Shaw has been quoted as saying that DRDO ‘should be focusing on every emerging technology and the application of new technology. At present, there seems to be only imitative effort. A lot of the research is ineffective. We need reforms in defence research that capitalises on innovation’.

Since 2004 there has been a clamour for an independent audit of the DRDO and for a review and monitoring mechanisms to be put in place. There has also been a call for a review by an independent group of experts so that DRDO could gain from outside expertise and carry out requisite reforms.

This is resisted by DRDO, which feels that as it has its own audit and review of projects; it does not consider it necessary to introduce additional audit and reviews. Understandably as things stand there is no accountability for delays and cost overruns in projects undertaken by DRDO.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence that scrutinised the working of DRDO has been less than flattering in its report on DRDO’s functioning and performance. Based on this report the Government has formed a committee to carry out a review of the DRDO. However if the review is restricted to the DRDO per se, then perhaps the recommendations of the committee may be somewhat misleading. The terms of reference given to the committee must include a review of the entire defence management system of the country, including the role of all stakeholders, if imple-mentation of its recommendations is to make a difference.

Conclusion

India has invested a lot in terms of money and time in DRDO but the benefits have not accrued to the extent desired. DRDO has not been able to achieve the country’s vision, because vision without efficiency or good management is hallucination.

There is no requirement for DRDO to take on every project. There is no need for it to try to meet every requirement of the Services. The DRDO cannot be, and must not attempt at being, an all singing all dancing organisation. Instead it should focus on consolidating in a few selective vital areas and concentrate on those for optimum results.

Earlier India did not have the capability or the capacity in the private sector to undertake defence work. India Inc has now a proven record of being innovative and aggressive. Perhaps it is now time, to pursue aggressively and with resolve, an involvement of the Private Sector in jointly working with DRDO to meet our goals of indigenisation in defence.

At present, there is a big gap between the image that DRDO projects and the reality as it exists on the ground. DRDO as an organisation has a lot of potential but unless steps are taken to make it efficient and accountable, that potential will remain just that.