Facing a volley of allegations from various fronts regarding the lack of complete indigenisation in defence weapon systems and technologies, huge cost and time overruns, Defence Research and Development Organisation, the premier defence research institute of India, has come forward to clarify the ambiguity surrounding terms like ‘indigenous production of defence systems’.
Alleging that its officials have been misquoted, DRDO is now maintaining that its aim is to make India and its military ‘self reliant’ in technology and weapon systems.
Disclosing this, Ravi Gupta, the DRDO spokesperson, said that contrary to popular understanding, ‘indigenisation is development of exact substitutes of systems already in use’.
When confronted with charges of importing components from other countries and the so-called ‘joint ventures’, he said that there was no point in wasting time and money when a component was available off the shelf readily at a competitive price.
“DRDO aims at selling its products developed in a cost effective way to other nations, but that cannot happen if we start emphasising the production of every nut and bolt in our country,” he said. He also emphasised that DRDO was aiming at self-reliance in development of technology, systems etc.
When quizzed about the major cost and time over-runs of its projects in the name of ‘indigenisation’, Mr Gupta retraced DRDO’s history and said that the initial two decades were spent in the ‘learning process’ apart from the development of propellants ahead of other nations.