Bangalore: Unveiling a grand 15-year plan, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) said its priority would be to exploit the full potential of the spin-offs from the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas. Proposals to design the Medium Combat Aircraft (MCA) and an Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV) as big as the LCA Tejas during 11th and 12th Plan period would be made to the Planning Commission, said M. Natarajan, Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister.

He said the Government had not sanctioned the MCA but the DRDO had started preliminary work on it anticipating approval. He insisted that these plans were not ambitious and DRDO had the resources to cope with them. His plans come at a time when Tejas is still flying with an American engine because the indigenous Kaveri engine is not yet ready and even the aircraft's radar will now feature "six or seven" radar processors from Israel.

The MCA, it is said, will progressively have more stealth features and Dr. Natarajan comprehensively ruled out the DRDO diverting resources to develop heavy fighter aircraft. He projected that the Indian Air Force and Navy would together require about 300 to 400 Tejas fighters and 60 to 100 trainers. The demand for the MCA has been projected between 200 and 300 and the UCAV about 100. The development of the UCAV would be easy because the Tejas already featured a "high level of automation." "The production of Tejas will go on whether the Kaveri engine is available or not." Outsourcing

The biggest resource crunch the DRDO is facing is that of manpower.

Mr. Natarajan said that it was not possible for the organisation to compete with the information technology industry to get the best talent. The possibility of outsourcing work to private partners should be seriously looked into so that DRDO could concentrate on pure research and development. And he urged Indian industry to become more "technology driven not turnover driven".

"The IT companies are in our vicinity in Hyderabad, Bangalore and Pune. We recognise that it is going to be difficult to address the wage disparity between the IT sector and us. We have a committee looking into it right now. Our attrition rate right now is between 20 and 27 per cent. There is no short-term solution."

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