20 top scientists quit DRDO in 6 month

[Bangalorean]

Question that everybody has ignored is, can we trust private defense firms in India to keep confidential stuff confidential ?

On the contrary, I wonder if we can trust the government firms to do so.

No, seriously. What prevents a low paid sarkari babu from accepting a bribe from the ISI/Chinese/anyone else and compromise valuable information? What prevents competent hackers from hacking into poorly maintained and inefficiently implemented government servers?

A private company knows that even one mistake will ruin their company and they will make sure that this does not happen. The onus is on them.

In India, all the decades of licence Raj socialistic thinking have conditioned us to think that the government is benign and benevolent while private businessmen are untrustworthy. This is the way our minds have been conditioned.

I repeat: the US is as powerful as it is because of GE, Haliburton, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and so on. We will never become a powerful nation till we have our desi versions of these companies.

 

[Bangalorean]

On a long enough timeline, I'd agree with you. But in current decade, I see DRDO strong in grabbing orders & the relative attitude will determine its survival in the competition.

But the question is, in the current decade, are private players being given a level playing field? Has the sector really been opened up? No, not yet. Once the sector is opened up, the private players need a lead time of 3-4 years, and then DRDO cannot survive.

Actually, the ideal scenario is is DRDO survives as an independent regulator. Similar to the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India). That is the ideal role the state should play - that of a regulator and ombudsman.

 

[pmaitra]

Of course "private companies" give kickbacks! All over the world, millions of them do. But that's not even the point here.

Quotes? Sir, the stigma is on private sector as much as it is on the public sector. Nobody is singling out any one particular sector.

You say, "what if DRDO makes a better product?"! I can bet my life here, that if there are 2-3 private companies competing with them, the DRDO cannot even think of completing the product on time, let alone providing the finished product for comparison. That is the nature of the bureaucratic government machinery.

You don't want to bet your life on it, especially after you read about the Arjun vs T-90 story which I have quoted earlier. Moreover, it's not about what you and I feel, or our personal convictions, it is about what can happen and what has happened in the past.

My arguments are:

• Chose products based on merit.
• Make sure private companies do not give bribes to get their products accepted.
• Make sure IA or any organisation has no authority to refuse comparative trials that is requested by a private or public sector company.

All I am saying is, open up the sector. You want DRDO to remain along with the others? Sure, but it won't survive as a viable entity for more than a decade. Today we consider DRDO an "indispensable service" but when the sector is opened up, DRDO will be shown up as a bloodsucking laggard, the same way Air India is being shown up today.

I agree that we should open up the sector to private companies. Actually, we already have. But will DRDO not survive beyond a decade? I don't think so but we will only have to wait and see. My hunch is that DRDO will ramp up it's quality of products and get out of it's complacency to match that of the private companies.

One example:
TATA Motors was formerly called the Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company (TELCO). They used to make steam locomotives. Whatever happened to them once Chittaranjan Locomotive Works was founded? They have been in the automotive sector for a long time. How long did it take them to design the Tata Indica? Do we know that it was designed by an Italian company called IDEA?

DRDO or HAL will lose out the race? In the long run? Maybe; in ten years? I absolutely won't be that optimistic.

 

[nrj]

Question that everybody has ignored is, can we trust private defense firms in India to keep confidential stuff confidential ?

We can't even trust DPSUs to keep confidential stuff confidential. Traitors exists everywhere, individually motivated or unitedly motivated. It really is duty of Govt, more essentially intelligence agency's to keep vigilance on individual/organization, if they are mishandling any sensitive information.

 

[Bangalorean]

Quotes? Sir, the stigma is on private sector as much as it is on the public sector. Nobody is singling out any one particular sector.

No, my point is that PSUs in India have a history of being inefficient and laggard, and we have hardly a few examples of worthwhile PSU contributions that one can count on fingers. The 'stigma of bribery' might be there on the private sector, but we're talking about efficiency and actually being able to deliver a product here.

My arguments are:

• Chose products based on merit.
• Make sure private companies do not give bribes to get their products accepted.
• Make sure IA or any organisation has no authority to refuse comparative trials that is request by a private or public sector company.

I agree that we should open up the sector to private companies. Actually, we already have. But will DRDO not survive beyond a decade? I don't think so but we will only have to wait and see. My hunch is that DRDO will ramp up it's quality of products and get out of it's complacency to match that of the private companies.

Let us see about DRDO. As long as the private sector is given a level playing field, I am happy. But I will not tolerate more decades of 'giving a chance to only DRDO'. If DRDO happens to do something worthwhile in the decades ahead, well and good, I won't complain.

 

[nrj]

But the question is, in the current decade, are private players being given a level playing field? Has the sector really been opened up? No, not yet. Once the sector is opened up, the private players need a lead time of 3-4 years, and then DRDO cannot survive.

Actually, the ideal scenario is is DRDO survives as an independent regulator. Similar to the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India). That is the ideal role the state should play - that of a regulator and ombudsman.

You are exactly right in first part. That is why I meant another decade as these coming years will slowly but surely open the sector step-by-step & when level playing field arises, DRDO will be hit by competition.

Take for example of recent MALE UAV development contract; though the desi Private players were contesting, the contract was straight-way awarded to DRDO. Reason is simple & somehow convincing since project was very important and requires experienced developer. But at the same time it is very important for Govt to give few of the contracts only to Pvt players as unless you try them you'll never know what are the possibilities & it'll also give chance to pvt firms to gain experience.

 

[Armand2REP]

This is a blessing in disguise. I hope that terrible and inefficient organization called DRDO collapses completely, and defence production is handed over to private firms. That will be the day we will have Indian versions of Boeing, Lockheed, BAE systems, etc.

It is a blessing to have high turnover? Never heard that as a good business or research model.

 

[Bangalorean]

It is a blessing to have high turnover? Never heard that as a good business or research model.

No, I said, it is a blessing in disguise that people are finding DRDO less lucrative and are moving to private firms - this will force the government to open up the defence sector to private participation. The reasons and rationale are explained in my subsequent posts here.

 

[gogbot]

DRDO is needed to conduct our most expensive and secretive research.
Which include Missile , Nuclear , Laser and advanced Engine research

TO that end they should just downsize and prioritize to those that they can do best and they can only do.

Remaining labs should be liberalized.

 

[Armand2REP]

No, I said, it is a blessing in disguise that people are finding DRDO less lucrative and are moving to private firms - this will force the government to open up the defence sector to private participation. The reasons and rationale are explained in my subsequent posts here.

Just because they are moving to private firms doesn't mean DRDO is going to change its model. The scientists are not moving to defence related firms in India as there are not many of them. The companies that exist today are geared towards commercial products. Even if GoI does open tenders to them, they are not ready to take most military contracts. They aren't going to change themselves unless they get backing from the state to do so. How do you create something that doesn't exist? The first place they do exist are the state run defence complex. Sell that out from under state control and you automatically privatise the industry.

 

[Friend]

The other day I read an article that stated how Mahindra, TATA and other big shots entering aerospace and defence are rolling the red carpet for DRDO 'retired' scientists. I guess this is the cue. One of those two already hired the top Tejas scientist.

Hi!

Dont you think with private players entering defence market, we will find these 'players' start influencing our defence policies. (Please remember the Radia tapes controversy) ????

 

[JayATL]

Yes privatization will lead to some suspect politics, but the fault is not in privatization. It is in the character of people who do it. The media can blow open those suspect cases. But on balance privatization of this industry will only result in high caliber by products.

see in the US , certain congressmen will not vote to remove a no longer needed military product because the companies have their manufacturing plant in their district that hires 1000's of people. but all this has not taken away one fact- the caliber of services and products delivered is top notch.

also all private defense companies have strict guidelines from the govt. they can't just go sell things to anyone ...they have to get permission or have it pre-authorized. i.e. look at how the US keeps certain technology transfers just to itself.

 

[sandeepdg]

Yeah, mate. Its not about government or private, its the mentality that you bring to the job after all. If you are determined to find flaws in everything, and take it as an excuse of your under performance, then even the almighty can't help ! If the public sector guys keep cribbing as poor payscales as excuse for turning out high end results, then why is that the Russian defense industry keeps coming out with such cutting edge tech, even though they face the same situation as their Indian counterparts.

 

[jitendra_ok2007]

really it will be a suicidal attempt to allow these companies in defence. We cant ignore the controversery of Radia tapes. It will be a common occurence after the privatisation of defence sector. instead the scintist should pe paid more and more.

 

[JayATL]

^^^ if one bad apple or a few stops progression then why did India change to free market principles ? It should have by the extension of the logic you presented stuck to socialist govt principles. free market creates bad apples too.

The point being , you don't drop the " the good" because you want the " the perfect" in everything.

give you another example. We have seen some the indian army personnel who have land scams, spy for ISI or we have rogue groups like the Shiv Sena and rss who are racists in nature-

should we alter the constitution to ban the freedom of people to speech, assemble and protest peaceful or form such groups or disband the army because of these examples or should we stop trusting all officers with any intelligence?