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RameshCSuri
It is said that there are only two ways to get high technology: create it or steal it. Stealing has not been part of our national psyche; but our attempts to create technology, particularly for defence, have been feeble. In the defence sector, transfer of technology (ToT) from a donor to a receiver is a misnomer and not a reality. Nobody passes on the technology they have created and mastered: technology, like liberty, does not descend upon a people. Sellers generally withhold critical system components to create long term cashflow for themselves. What they provide to the buyer are often low-end technologies that are unsatisfying crumbs rather than dependable meals. For a nation of our size and hunger for high technology, mere crumbs will not do.
In any case, for any ToT process to be effective, the receiver of the technology should be advanced enough, and adequately primed to absorb the transfer. In practice as soon as any weapon system has been cleared for foreign purchase, the indigenous R&D effort has been dumped as an inconsequential activity.
The responsibility for creating defence technology rests with the Defence Research and Development Organisation, or DRDO. Its performance over the period of last five decades or so does not inspire much confidence. Major weapon platforms like the
Arjun main battle tank, the Tejas light combat aircraft, the Kaveri engine, the Trishul surface-to-air missile, and artillery guns have floundered for too long. Value-wise, we are still dependent on outside suppliers for nearly 70 per cent of our defence needs. The extent of that dependence is a major problem, a barrier to India's rise.
Various committees constituted to examine what ails the DRDO have not helped. Moreover, a superficial revamp of its organisational structure, and the institution of some procedural changes has not, and will not, prove to be sufficient. It is a law of nature that when an ailment is serious, the remedial measures are likely to be more fundamental. In what follows, I have highlighted some of the core issues confronting the DRDO. I believe that acknowledgement and consensus around these issues is a first step to solving them.
The first problem is the mismatch between the DRDO's assertions and its actual capabilities. Without proven ability, in the early '80s, the DRDO undertook major projects: aircraft, battle tanks, missiles. India invested large amounts of funds in each of these projects, more on promise than on demonstrated abilities. The DRDO never organically developed its research capabilities. Rather, it bit off the largest bite it possibly could. More often than not, it found the chewing to be beyond its abilities.
Then there's the DRDO's politicised internal culture. Its funding has been enabled by the traditionally close linkages between the scientific community and their political masters. Project proposals were not duly scrutinised; yet the funding was sanctioned. No proper feasibility studies were carried out. Once the projects were underway, subjective peer-reviews by convenient peers selected by the developing agency itself were put in place. Such informal reviews can never substitute for a hardnosed technical audit. Various steering and working group committees were put in place - but they were given no authority to pull the plug if they were not satisfied. Cost and time overruns were infinitely flexible, with no accountability for delay or failure.
In addition, there is the question of a seriously faulty customer orientation. The DRDO does not appreciate that its raison d'être is to develop weapon systems for the services. Thus an antagonistic attitude between the DRDO and the services is frequently seen. A favourite phrase of one project manager was for the evaluating service agencies to "take it or leave it" hardly a path for building synergy and customer focus.
This unhappy brew of poor management, an unmeritorious culture and the lack of visionary leadership condemned the DRDO to an unproductive backwater. But what should be done about it?
It is time to finally admit that a governmental environment may not be the most optimum location to overcome these shortcomings. What is urgently needed is a perspective plan for the modernisation of the armed forces, linked to its technology requirements. Once technological gaps are identified, an all-out effort must be launched to create these technologies with participation from both the public and private sector. For this, DRDO could be a convener but not the sole decision-making authority.
The writer, a former major general, was associated with the DRDO and with the Arjun project since its inception
Low tech, high politics - Yahoo! India News
It is said that there are only two ways to get high technology: create it or steal it. Stealing has not been part of our national psyche; but our attempts to create technology, particularly for defence, have been feeble. In the defence sector, transfer of technology (ToT) from a donor to a receiver is a misnomer and not a reality. Nobody passes on the technology they have created and mastered: technology, like liberty, does not descend upon a people. Sellers generally withhold critical system components to create long term cashflow for themselves. What they provide to the buyer are often low-end technologies that are unsatisfying crumbs rather than dependable meals. For a nation of our size and hunger for high technology, mere crumbs will not do.
In any case, for any ToT process to be effective, the receiver of the technology should be advanced enough, and adequately primed to absorb the transfer. In practice as soon as any weapon system has been cleared for foreign purchase, the indigenous R&D effort has been dumped as an inconsequential activity.
The responsibility for creating defence technology rests with the Defence Research and Development Organisation, or DRDO. Its performance over the period of last five decades or so does not inspire much confidence. Major weapon platforms like the
Arjun main battle tank, the Tejas light combat aircraft, the Kaveri engine, the Trishul surface-to-air missile, and artillery guns have floundered for too long. Value-wise, we are still dependent on outside suppliers for nearly 70 per cent of our defence needs. The extent of that dependence is a major problem, a barrier to India's rise.
Various committees constituted to examine what ails the DRDO have not helped. Moreover, a superficial revamp of its organisational structure, and the institution of some procedural changes has not, and will not, prove to be sufficient. It is a law of nature that when an ailment is serious, the remedial measures are likely to be more fundamental. In what follows, I have highlighted some of the core issues confronting the DRDO. I believe that acknowledgement and consensus around these issues is a first step to solving them.
The first problem is the mismatch between the DRDO's assertions and its actual capabilities. Without proven ability, in the early '80s, the DRDO undertook major projects: aircraft, battle tanks, missiles. India invested large amounts of funds in each of these projects, more on promise than on demonstrated abilities. The DRDO never organically developed its research capabilities. Rather, it bit off the largest bite it possibly could. More often than not, it found the chewing to be beyond its abilities.
Then there's the DRDO's politicised internal culture. Its funding has been enabled by the traditionally close linkages between the scientific community and their political masters. Project proposals were not duly scrutinised; yet the funding was sanctioned. No proper feasibility studies were carried out. Once the projects were underway, subjective peer-reviews by convenient peers selected by the developing agency itself were put in place. Such informal reviews can never substitute for a hardnosed technical audit. Various steering and working group committees were put in place - but they were given no authority to pull the plug if they were not satisfied. Cost and time overruns were infinitely flexible, with no accountability for delay or failure.
In addition, there is the question of a seriously faulty customer orientation. The DRDO does not appreciate that its raison d'être is to develop weapon systems for the services. Thus an antagonistic attitude between the DRDO and the services is frequently seen. A favourite phrase of one project manager was for the evaluating service agencies to "take it or leave it" hardly a path for building synergy and customer focus.
This unhappy brew of poor management, an unmeritorious culture and the lack of visionary leadership condemned the DRDO to an unproductive backwater. But what should be done about it?
It is time to finally admit that a governmental environment may not be the most optimum location to overcome these shortcomings. What is urgently needed is a perspective plan for the modernisation of the armed forces, linked to its technology requirements. Once technological gaps are identified, an all-out effort must be launched to create these technologies with participation from both the public and private sector. For this, DRDO could be a convener but not the sole decision-making authority.
The writer, a former major general, was associated with the DRDO and with the Arjun project since its inception
Low tech, high politics - Yahoo! India News
