Will anyone dare audit the DRDO?

Numbered 6.19 and 6.20 in the report, accessed by The Indian Express, the Kelkar panel, including scientists, officials of the three service chiefs and industry organisations, said that the Defence R038;D Board, the apex review mechanism headed by the DRDO chief, should also include representatives from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research CSIR and the Indian Space Research Organisation ISRO.

This, the Committee noted, was 8220;in order to enable the Defence R038;D Board to draw the expertise and experience from institutions falling outside the purview of defence.8221;

Second, the Kelkar Committee recommended that DRDO be periodically reviewed 8220;for its functioning8221; by an independent high level committee and the first such review should be initiated in 2005. The reason: 8220;DRDO has expanded considerably and tried to create in-house research facilities for all defence requirements. This, perhaps, is not a very cost-effective move8230;DRDO, as a research body has also not been reviewed by an external and independent group of experts8221;, a process the Kelkar Committee said would compel DRDO to 8220;reform wherever necessary8221;.

Not just Kelkar. In 2004, the Late J N Dixit, then National Security Advisor, had strongly argued for a comprehensive audit of DRDO8217;s dubiously expensive project record.

However, such advice is blasphemy in the DRDO. So on January 2 this year 8212; nine months after the Kelkar Committee report was submitted 8212; when the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence asked DRDO what it planned to do about new auditing mechanisms, this is how the DRDO replied: 8220;DRDO has enough audit and reviews of the projects at various stages. It is not considered necessary to introduce additional audit and reviews.8221;

Limited audits of DRDO were conducted by the Comptroller and Auditor General CAG in 1988-89, 1992-93 and in 1997-2001 but these focused on manpower utilization, procurement of systems, all concluding derelict financial management and inexplicable expenditure. These reports were followed up by Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee reports, the last one in August 2005 recording massive wastages in 15 major DRDO establishments.

But the fact remains, there has been no single comprehensive audit of the DRDO or its functioning. Perhaps this is what prompted Comptroller and Auditor General V N Kaul to say today at a seminar in the capital on defence finance8230;8221;Defence R038;D is an area where accountability often takes shelter under the policy of self reliance, and indigenization becomes a reason for delay8230;accountability of domestic R038;D organizations needs to be re-emphasized to enable better assessment of return from investment. Sensitizing of the defence services to the role of public audit is essential.8221; But an investigation by The Indian Express into official records and testimonies shows that it will take more than a CAG speech to sensitise DRDO. Consider these:

8226; Not only has DRDO testified to the Standing Committee in January that it has more than sufficient auditing mechanisms, it wants less interference from the government, and even less accountability. In fact, in what the armed forces call preposterous, DRDO chief M Natarajan told the Standing Committee: 8220;We intend examining the possibility of a structure similar to Space Commission/ Atomic Energy Commission to bring about greater autonomy in our functioning8230;This may take some time to evolve conceptually, before we could seek government approval for the same.8221;

8226; The highest monitoring body for DRDO, the DRDO Research Council DRC, is in-house and under the control of the DRDO chief, who personally reviews its progress. DRDO has testified to the Standing Committee that it has 8220;no scientific audit of DRDO projects as such8221;, and justified this by indicating the existence of feasibility studies for projects, decision aid for technology evaluation DATE, in-house project peer reviews and post-project reviews.

8226; All DRDO projects costing more than Rs 2 crore are to be compulsorily 8220;peer reviewed8221; by an expert committee for their viability. The Peer Review Committee PRC is necessarily an in-house mechanism.

8226; There are three-tier monitoring boards for all projects over Rs 100 crore. All these boards are under the aegis of the DRDO.

8226; This September, Army vice chief Lt Gen S Pattabhiraman reviewed 40 DRDO staff projects for the Army and found just three of them on track. Later, in the same month, DRDO chief Natarajan recommended to the Standing Committee that time extensions and cost increases be jointly endorsed with the services for government approval. In other words, DRDO would have sole control over projects but would rather not be accountable all alone.

8226; In its latest testimony, DRDO has said that accountability 8220;cannot be fixed for loss of time in projects8221; and that slippages are due to 8220;technological problems and not negligence8221;. Yet, on September 22, it officially asked the government for the freedom to recommend additional project authorizations, and that the Department of Defence Production DDP should ensure compliance.

8226; Given that the three services are the ones most visibly complaining about DRDO delays and results, DRDO has recommended that equipment trials be conducted by an independent test and evaluation agency, preferably with Integrated Defence Staff or DG Acquisition. In other words, DRDO doesn8217;t trust the armed forces but puts itself above all questioning.

Audit Mechanism

India
C038;AG audits defence expenditure and individual performance of DRDO programmes but ministry justifies with scientific reasons for shortcomings and delays. No independent or external audits for project performance.

USA
US Department of Defence Inspector-General audit, followed by independent technical and performance audit of all programmes. Government Accountability Office GAO reviews financial prudence.

UK
National Audit Office NAO reviews financial performance of defence branches, independent performance audit for programmes

Tomorrow: Where has the DRDO talent gone?