DRDO himself has given up on the project and started Archer NG. Also this reply sums it up -
And how much does the Archer NG owe to the learning curve from Lakshya onwards . It's bad project management with DRDO as usual trying to reinvent the wheel instead of being incremental in their approach . What exactly are the services & MoD doing while ADE continues with its science project ?
Take it from me , if the total requirment of MALE drones are 155 , we might import / assemble a quarter of the total qty , induct a sub standard Mk-1 which may or may not have the capacity to be upgraded , improve on it by inducting an Mk-1a which though vastly superior to its predecessor would still not be up to the mark & finally come up with the definitive Mk-2 which'd surpass the SQRs.
This has been the normal SOP witnessed over 4 decades & believe it or not DRDO is actually improving its track record. Then again this is the ADE we're talking about which I can't decide is more incompetent or jinxed if not both with an unenviable track record in delivering the finished product on time & conforming mostly to the SQRs.
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Honestly, we give too long a rope to our PSUs and research labs. They are not immature organizations anymore. We are a trillion $ economy, with the largest pool of talent perhaps only second to China. We should set our standards higher. Half of the Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing, Rolce-Royce, etc. are being managed by Indian or Indian-origin employees.
The only thing DRDO/PSUs need is to shed the govt. job attitude, loosen their pockets for hiring good talent instead of hundreds of freebies they get, and have a direct chain of responsibility and accountability.
Should we remember how within 2-3 years the entire micro-UAV & anti-drone market was taken over by budding, talented private players? DRDO kept making a single fucking quadcopter UAV (Netra) for 10 years and saw only single-digit numbers service. Then drone startups like IdeaForce, Garuda Airspace, etc. came and bagged huge orders from forces (now don't tell me this piss poor startups somehow bribed officials).
None of the top business houses be it Reliance or Adani or surprise surprise the Tatas have a culture of investing in R&D . This is true of most of the older business houses too . It's just not in their DNA & it's not in the DNA of defence to bestow it's good fortunes on those who are miserly with their R&D budgets. This isn't just the case of the DRDO here. All our old respected business houses stand indicted.
So what's the solution. Promote Young Turks like you've named to bring a fresh perspective to this field & by the looks of it they're succeeding where the older ones are plodding around masquerading their screwdrivergiri as ToT , though beyond a point these Young Turks would be vulnerable to takeovers whether thru inducement or thru underhanded means by the giants in the field .
MoDs policies on drones seem quite enlightened from the looks of it at first glance though I admit to have superficial knowledge about the topic at hand . It's understood that services PSQRs are designed with a view to slowly graduate the percentage of indigenous components & sub assemblies from COTS . I believe though this policy holds true for micro miniature & small drones though eventually they'd be adapted to larger drones as well.
This sets the stage for a whole host of competitors to get in & if they're far sighted intending to be serious players they'd start indigenizing sooner rather than later. Once the norms becomes more stringent , the wheat gets separated from the chaff. Fly by night operators get busted , old business houses with their la dee dah attitude either get side lined or they loosen their purse strings to pocket a few promising start ups but the day will be carried by these Young Turks not all of whom can be cowed or bought .
