Despite knowing nothing about Dehradun, Dodos and optics, I am fairly confident what happened here.One of DODOs organisation at Dehradun has been singularly responsible for denial of all optical and electronic sights and sensors to Indian Army for last fifty years. Every time IA puts a proposal to acquire one they start crying - they will .. they will make. They never made one nor allowed IA acquire one.
Use the single biggest power of bureacrcy - Denial. With the pay and perks those DODOs have drawn so far from Defense estimates- Indian Army could have equipped themselves with world class optics and sensors ten times over by now.
The Chinese relied on domestic products for decades even though for a long time they might have lagged behind western tech (just like they relied on the j-7 till the 80s) and are now at par with the West.
Whereas the Indian army insisted that the "Dehradun" products must be absolutely world class, absolutely perfect from day one (yes , I am sure the desi research labs were slow and not user oriented as they tend to be)....refused to induct the inferior desi products even as a starting point ....and now the Army stomps its feet like a 3 year old because they have been denied the foreign maal they deserve.
It is of course a massive deficiency, but no different for instance from the Air force lack of highly critical AEWs because of course we couldn't have just pumped out large numbers of the otherwise decent Netras,.....