Under pressure from the government to introduce more unambiguous targets for indigenous weapons projects, M Natarajan, chief of Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO), has for the first time ordered the directors of all 50 of the organisation’s laboratories to urgently bring out clear-cut business development plans.

The idea of creating individual business roadmaps came after the recent discussions between the Integrated Defence Staff (IDS) and the DRDO. The Defence Ministry will use the business development plans as new, straightforward benchmarks to track DRDO’s overall performance, particularly its contribution to the country’s “self-reliance index”, currently at a dismal 30 per cent.

“The business plan from each lab would shape the choice of projects consistent with user’s requirements and in conformity with the aspirations and capabilities of DRDO laboratories,” Natarajan has said in a letter to all DRDO staff. The 50 individual plans are to be finalised shortly.

Following an eight-part investigative series in this newspaper in November last year on the delays and cost escalation that have afflicted almost all DRDO projects, the government constituted an eight-member independent panel last month to report on its procedural, administrative and financial flaws.

The panel has already begun work on a comprehensive report that it will deliver to the Defence Ministry later this year.

“I am confident our senior scientists together with the younger lot will continually keep changing in tune with the needs of the time,” Natarajan said in his letter, adding, “It must be appreciated that products like aircraft, battle tanks, electronic warfare systems, strategic and tactical missile systems and submarines can only be realised through the sustained efforts of highly dedicated team of scientists, engineers, technical staff and technicians.”

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