The Hindu : National : DRDO has funds but not enough manpower

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Saturday, Jan 05, 2008
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DRDO has funds but not enough manpower

P. Sunderarajan

VISAKhAPATNAM: The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is facing a piquant situation. It has funds, but not enough good scientists for several key projects.

At the Indian Science Congress, now on here, the organisation’s head, M. Natarajan, made a passionate plea to universities and academic institutions to help fill the gap.

Research boards

Delivering a plenary lecture on Thursday, Dr. Natarajan said the DRDO formed five research boards three years ago to promote collaborative work with universities and academic institutions. But very few proposals matched up to its standards. He urged the universities and academic institutions to rework their proposals and send them again. He also asked students to consider defence research as a career option. The DRDO had only 7,000 scientists and 12,000 technical staff. The numbers were too meagre for handling complex projects, particularly because most of them required about 10 years of dedicated research, he said.

While universities and academic institutions could help in basic research, the DRDO would take care of integration of systems and packaging of the products.

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