As Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander made a textbook landing near the south pole of the Moon on August 23, India scripted an indelible chapter in space history. India is the first to achieve the landing of a vehicle near the Moon’s South Pole — with such elan that the “developed” world stared in disbelief. Congratulations and a big shabash, not just to the able scientists of ISRO but to all entities, big or small, public or private, that have made India proud.
It is said that “success is a poor teacher”. Chandrayaan-3’s success has been attributed, with a broad brush, to the Indian scientific community. The scientists of ISRO deserve every bit of the credit. Others can wait for their moments of glory. Specifically, it would be interesting to shift focus to another equally important entity, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) that performs research activity for the Armed Forces.
The DRDO is not ISRO, but it is an important component of the larger Indian scientific community. Its performance has been lacklustre over the years causing much disappointment in the armed forces. To be fair, the DRDO has done excellent work in flashes but this has been more due to individual brilliance and not because of organisational effectiveness. The Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP) under A P J Abdul Kalam is the most prominent of these successes. Later versions of Electronic Warfare systems have also been successful, albeit haltingly. In general, product realisation timelines have been excessive and end products are often dated by the time they are fielded. Trials go on for years with little assurance that the desired end state will be reached. This situation needs correction.
ISRO is sharply focused on technologies for space applications such as propulsion, material science, control, navigation, imaging and tracking. Meanwhile, DRDO’s scope has expanded, encompassing systems and sub-systems in all domains — underwater, surface and air. This results in a dilution of focus. ISRO being the developer, launcher and controller all in one, ready their product and prove it. DRDO is only the developer. Once a prototype is successfully developed, there are production agencies and users that have separate responsibilities for serial production, trials and acceptance. This fundamental difference between the functioning of the two organisations causes a serious lack of cohesion and persistence from design to realisation. To further complicate things, user groups change frequently during the development of a product by the DRDO, leading to a slowdown of projects. On the other hand, if development timelines were shorter, such changes may not be necessary.
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What needs to be done? A thorough audit of all our DRDO laboratories, encompassing processes, organisation and workforce should be undertaken. The degree to which DRDO conducts fundamental research also needs review as this is more important than being just an integrator of technologies. Skewed teeth-to-tail ratios and the top-heavy nature of the organisation must be examined. DRDO laboratories’ contribution towards enhancing the combat-readiness of our armed forces must be critically assessed and laboratories not serving their envisaged purpose should be wound up. The performance of production agencies as also the involvement and value-addition by user groups must be evaluated and made more productive.
The armed forces must define niche disciplines in which DRDO should expend its efforts. The rest must be taken on by capable industries, both public and private, that must spend much more on integral research. ISRO and DRDO must share technologies developed or acquired as there are several that overlap between space and defence domains. This would save considerable re-work. Kalam’s long association with ISRO and the continuity he provided to the IGMDP would have been two big reasons for the success of the programme apart from his brilliance as a scientist. The earlier defence research and development and its associated production apparatus get their houses in order, the better for our Atmanirbhar combat capability.
The writer is a former Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command