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

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

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 finance...”Defence R&D is an area where accountability often takes shelter under the policy of self reliance, and indigenization becomes a reason for delay...accountability of domestic R&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.” 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:

... contd.