Why does DRDO fail? A critical review

[smanekshaw]

Please read and comment
DRDO India's lumbering dinosaur

 

[Ray]

Bureaucracy, red tape and the desire to live in the lap of luxury with no accountability being one of the sacred cows of the political establishment.

 

[smanekshaw]

Bureaucracy, red tape and the desire to live in the lap of luxury with no accountability being one of the sacred cows of the political establishment.

The culture of cronyism and incompetence is embedded, but there are other reasons too, such as overstaffed with clowns, accepting projects it has no business accepting etc.

 

[blank_quest]

selection of candidates in parties must be based on something like entrance test and interviews. Election Commission should setup a mechanism through which Candidates can be piped. Also the democratization of Political parties,their accountability and transparency of funds and allocation of seats must be assured. Electoral reforms are the first steps. it feels like India is trapped b/w bastard Politicians and nepotism of Bureaucrats.

 

[Patriot]

selection of candidates in parties must be based on something like entrance test and interviews. Election Commission should setup a mechanism through which Candidates can be piped. Also the democratization of Political parties,their accountability and transparency of funds and allocation of seats must be assured. Electoral reforms are the first steps. it feels like India is trapped b/w bastard Politicians and nepotism of Bureaucrats.

This suggestion is good but will not work when political parties start demanding reservation on the basis of casts SC/ST/BC/ Ladies seats/ language wise/ state-wise/ religion etc etc..

 

[sayareakd]

when drdo chief cannot sanction 75 crore for project on hus own, you can understand, what are the state of affairs in our defence, when he sanctioned project by lowering its budget, red flags were raised. How can someone work in such enviroment???

 

[smanekshaw]

when drdo chief cannot sanction 75 crore for project on hus own, you can understand, what are the state of affairs in our defence, when he sanctioned project by lowering its budget, red flags were raised. How can someone work in such enviroment???

This is what the article calls penny wise and pound foolish.
They never import anything just to take it apart and understand it like the Chinese.

 

[The Fox]

this is called biting more than you can chew............english
aasigae ieedhashtu kalu chachu.............. Kanada
aagala kal vaicha underware kezienjudum...... Tamiz

 

[venkat]

Dont be too critical of HAL,DRDO etc....you are seeing openly how we are being screwed in the gorshakov deal...Every day one new story and theory is appearing regarding Gorshakov failures....DRDO .HAL,BEL needs the raw materials for all of their projects... which we dont have....No semiconductors are manufactured in India...No fab facilities.... Brain drain from top engineering institutions.....adding to that all the traditional ills that plague India...Regionalism,casteism, corruption, and all isms....

 

[drkrn]

The article clearly depicts the loop holes and main reason for failures
an organization which even can't conduct a proper exam for recruiting scientists cannot produce good quality materials

pathetic

 

[Bangalorean]

Simple answer: no government organization can ever be expected to provide world class stuff on its own. Sometimes, when exposed to competition, they might provide good service or products, but even that will not be best-in-class.

Things like "entrenched bureaucracy, cronyism, lack of accountability, politicization" and all that are just details. Cut to the point - a babu-infested sarkari organization cannot do anything worthwhile. Even if they do something worthwhile it will never be world-class. Simple.

As long the private sector does not enter this field, we need not expect anything good or cutting edge. At the very least, the private sector will at least reverse-engineer or create clones of some basic things to begin with.

 

[ice berg]

It is about project management, not whether it is government or private enterprise.

Btw I love the piece. Had a good laugh.

 

[Bangalorean]

It is about project management, not whether it is government or private enterprise.

Btw I love the piece. Had a good laugh.

And a babu-infested government organizations in India cannot get anything right, let alone complex project management.

All sectors in India where there is world-class service and standards, are open to private industry. Those that are still under government monopoly are rotting, eating up tax money.

 

[Bangalorean]

Take a look at the recommendations:


#Shut down DRDO. If this is not possible, since there are guaranteed jobs for government employees, reduce it's funding to zero. Stop hiring and let it die a natural death.

Shutting it down would be too drastic, but when they are exposed to competition from the private sector and when their scientists are poached by the private sector, they will either improve as an organization (like SBI has done), or will wilt away. In both cases, the country wins.

# Researches on small arms, grenades, RPG's etc are best left to the engineering corps of our army who work with these weapons everyday. Task these engineers with replicating and improving armaments that we currently import.

# Judiciously select about a dozen scientists from DRDO who are technically competent. If necessary conduct an exam to test them on the fundamentals of the fields they are specializing in.

And who will do this judicious selection? If another government organization has to do it, God help us - it is doomed to failure again. Private industry will recruit the best scientists from DRDO automatically. Not only DRDO, they will also pick the best brains from I.I.Sc, GE JFWTC, etc.

# For Large items such as aircraft, we need to pay and get the best engineers from Sukhoi, Lockheed etc so that they may train a dedicated and knowledgeable team of a dozen engineers.

Again, let us be specific about the "we" that we are talking about here. Another government babu organization is not the solution. Private sector will do this.

# There should be no place for reservation or any limit on pay to this elite team of engineers. In fact we would be hard pressed to find a dozen such people.

There is no reservation in private sector, and competition will automatically give the engineers good pay, as per MNC standards.

# Encourage the private sector to design and develop weapon systems. They should be allowed to design and manufacture complete weapon systems and line replaceable units. Our private sector needs to stop imagining that R&D consists of BPO's, call centers and Nanos.


The only way forward is to get the private sector in. There is no other way.

 

[Apollyon]

DRDO should be only for development of strategic systems of National importance such as Ballistic Missiles, Cruise Missiles and other secretive stuff (such as AURA ?) and sub-systems which cannot be sourced. (in the league of DARPA, achievable ?). No need to dilute DRDO but we should definitely find an alternative for organisations such as HAL and ADA most preferably in our Private Sector.

 

[Apollyon]

selection of candidates in parties must be based on something like entrance test and interviews. Election Commission should setup a mechanism through which Candidates can be piped. Also the democratization of Political parties,their accountability and transparency of funds and allocation of seats must be assured. Electoral reforms are the first steps. it feels like India is trapped b/w bastard Politicians and nepotism of Bureaucrats.

Seriously dude, this is your solution for cribbing the losing credibility of Indian Politicians ? You want our Political system to be like our Obsolete Education system where one is only judge on the basis of how much he can score in an paper based exam ? This is definitely not a realistic solution for our problems.
(why not instead of spending thousands of crores in elections we only just have a simple entrance test for selections of MP's and MLA's organized in every constituency, who ever gets the highest marks wins )
Well i agree with your Electoral reform part.

This suggestion is good but will not work when political parties start demanding reservation on the basis of casts SC/ST/BC/ Ladies seats/ language wise/ state-wise/ religion etc etc..

Don't crib about reservation. You cant do anything other than working hard to overcome this disadvantage.

 

[smanekshaw]

DRDO should be only for development of strategic systems of National importance such as Ballistic Missiles, Cruise Missiles and other secretive stuff (such as AURA ?) and sub-systems which cannot be sourced. (in the league of DARPA, achievable ?). No need to dilute DRDO but we should definitely find an alternative for organisations such as HAL and ADA most preferably in our Private Sector.

Btw they have linked Aura to the Kaveri engine. Killed it right there

 

[smanekshaw]

Dont be too critical of HAL,DRDO etc....you are seeing openly how we are being screwed in the gorshakov deal...Every day one new story and theory is appearing regarding Gorshakov failures....DRDO .HAL,BEL needs the raw materials for all of their projects... which we dont have....No semiconductors are manufactured in India...No fab facilities.... Brain drain from top engineering institutions.....adding to that all the traditional ills that plague India...Regionalism,casteism, corruption, and all isms....

My point precisely. But why r we in this predicament. Because DRDO can't step up to the plate.
Also we don't need to start from semiconductors up. In fact that is the mistake. By that logic the next step is sand refining to make pure silicon

If u want to backward integrate, do it gradually. Otherwise you delay everything.
Everyone world over designs an aircraft around an engine. Here you expect GE/RollsRoyce to help u design an engine when u haven't sold/made a single plane.
Even an Indian Engine company(if ever there exists one) won't agree to such a deal.

 

[Archer]

Please read and comment
DRDO India's lumbering dinosaur

You want this rubbish that you wrote to be reviewed? Seriously?
With BS like " LCA-Tejas- 30 year development. Still in flight tests. Only the control system and airframe are indigenous. All other components including the ejection seat are imported."...completely ignoring the huge advances in LRUs & avionics, to the extent that some 55% of the LRUs are local, an achievement which surpasses that achieved by the Swedes (talk to the developers sometimes) despite starting from a lower baseline..

And this

# Arjun-Main Battle Tank- 40 year development. End product is 50% overweight and the heart of the system, the fire control system has been developed by Elbit systems in Israel

With no idea of the fact that the DRDO-BEL IGMS has been kept by the wayside because the limited orders placed for the Arjun just doesn't allow for multiple types of FCS. And that the FCS was not developed by Elbit systems but by Delft & DRDO together (the Ballistic Computer is from Tata SED, developed in partnership with DRDO) and Sagem came in to take over part of Delft's responsibility when the firm ran into US sanctions. Elbit has nothing to do with the FCS, bar the fact that an Israeli firm took over Delft's FCS business & is hence linked to the program merely in terms of following through with prior contractual responsibility.

Your entire article is just one big load of rubbish, I am afraid.

Cherrypicking only those programs with the greatest challenges & either grossly misrepresenting the facts, or without even investigating the context.

No mention of India's remarkable successes in electronics (the Navy, AF & Army have now gone almost completely Indian for ESM/ELINT & a plethora of jammers are in service; over a dozen Indian radars/variants are in production. The AF is almost completely dependent on DRDO for its mission avionics & is gradually supplanting its Israeli/French kit..Naval fleet sonars are also dominated by NPOL..

India's self sufficiency index in these critical areas has approached the 70% level, fairly remarkable considering the baseline from which it started.

Your claims of Agni & Prithvi failing user trials are also humorous. If you were in anyway a serious observer of such programs, you'd understand how hard it is to set up the supply chain for assured components and subsystems from scratch & that failures are all too common when such an ecosystem is being set up. And the DRDO is transparent about these trials, using them as a QA method to ensure that series production goes on.

Even the so called failures like Trishul were remarkable in terms of engineering complexity, driven by user requirements beyond DRDO's control (the use of the Flycatcher radar for instance) and their tech is being leveraged to the hilt in follow on programs. Today's LR/MRSAM program with Israel leverages the tech development of the dual pulse motor pioneered with the Trishul...so does the Astra.

What you have done is take the worst of the media sources, with a long history of dodgy reporting and then built a story around them. No detailed research whatsoever. Hence, your solutions are in turn, equally flawed.

 

[pmaitra]

Please read and comment
DRDO India's lumbering dinosaur

I like this part. I had mentioned something on these lines earlier, and ended up in a heated debate:

Despite its unclassified salary budget of over 10,000 Crores there is very little for DRDO to be proud about, other than instant food packets and portable toilets.

And here is a nice way of selling old wine in new bottle:

The latest fancy is to develop reusable missiles, which will return after dropping their payload. No one points out that such technology already exists and is called an aircraft.

And this is a fine example of scratching each others' backs:

DRDO's progress in various fronts is judged by Professors from the IIT's, IISc etc. However these very people receive funds from DRDO for their research.

Inconvenience and utter stupidity:

Many DRDO labs do not even have internet access for 'security reasons'.

And lack of trust, of course:

Despite its massive 10000Cr budget scientists from different labs wouldn't be trusted to use their own vehicles to attend a meeting.

This is a typical problem with many Indian Institution, and the less I speak about it, the better:

DRDO has a bunch of in-house journals where the same set of 'scientists' publish, review and pat each other on the back.

This is actually a good thing:

One DRDO lab has no clue as to what the other is trying to do, so they end up trying to solve the same problem over and over again.

I disagree with this. How likely is a person from the engineering corp to find out about phenomena like the Monroe effect?

Researches on small arms, grenades, RPG's etc are best left to the engineering corps of our army who work with these weapons everyday. Task these engineers with replicating and improving armaments that we currently import.

I think we are already moving in the right direction with this:

Encourage the private sector to design and develop weapon systems.

Good article!