The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Panel set to submit report on DRDO

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Feb 09, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Panel set to submit report on DRDO

Ravi Sharma

Draft report on first external review of DRDO ready

Rama Rao panel reviewed 52 laboratories
Defence forces are among biggest critics
of DRDO

BANGALORE: The P. Rama Rao Committee, tasked with audit and recommending changes for improvement of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), has just completed its deliberations.

With the draft ready, the independent eight-man panel, headed by the former Science and Technology Secretary, is expected to submit its report to the government later this month.

This is the first external review of the 50-year-old organisation, which has an annual budget in excess of Rs. 5,000 crore. Its recommendations could have a bearing on the working livelihood of 29,000 employees including 7,500 engineers and 11,500 scientists and technical staff.

The panel, set up in January 2007 almost two years after the recommendations of the ‘Report of the Committee on Review of Defence Procurement Procedure to integrate Users, Ministry of Defence and the Industry’ (the Kelkar report), has over the past year reviewed 52 DRDO laboratories, visiting some and viewing presentations on the others. In all, it held over 20 meetings.

During last week’s confabulations in New Delhi, the panel members aired their views on restructuring of laboratories, human resource development policies, delegation of powers and duties, project participation, private industry partnerships, improving accountability, better coordination with the defence forces, possibility of the customer paying for development of a product or system and steps to keep delays and cost overruns of weapons programmes in check.

A member told The Hindu that the recommendations would “help improve the DRDO and also enable it to perform better.” The committee is likely to recommend closer participation by the defence forces in programmes. The defence forces, which are the biggest “beneficiaries” of DRDO-developed products and systems (the monetary value of which could touch Rs. 26,000 crore by 2010), are also among the biggest critics of the organisation.

The committee members raised questions whether the premier defence establishment should be involved in the development of products which could be bought cheaper off the shelf, and in conducting research on food products and textiles. Another member said one of the recommendations could be that the DRDO “ultimately restrict itself to pure research,” leaving product development and manufacturing to industry. Today it is involved in the development of Tejas aircraft, the Kaveri combat engine and the Arjun battle tank.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka

News Update

Stories in this Section