Setting up a Defence R&D Commission will make little difference by way of increasing self-reliance in defence systems and equipment, but it will increase the autonomy of functioning of the DRDO laboratories
There is hardly any lecture or discussion on the Defence
Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Defence Ministry
more broadly in which a call is not given for the setting up of a
Defence R&D Commission “on the pattern of” the Atomic Energy
Commission and the Space Commission. The rationale for such a proposal
is that it would enable the DRDO to have steeply increased autonomy and
more administrative and financial powers and, thereby, to be more
effective.
However, those who so argue are rarely
aware of the detailed organisational structure and managerial practices
of the two existing commissions. This article is intended to bring out
those structures and practices.
First and foremost,
the Cabinet Minister for those commissions is no less than the Prime
Minister himself. So, the chairmen of those commissions have direct
access to the very head of government. There is not even a Minister of
State in between. Where such a Minister of State has been brought into
the picture, his only role is to lighten the burden of the Prime
Minister in answering parliamentary questions and other matters related
to Parliament. The commission chairmen meet the Prime Minister whenever
they want to and also submit files directly to him/her. This gives both
chairmen unrivalled power.
Second, the commissions
are small and compact and the membership is at a very high level e.g.
both the principal secretary to the Prime Minister and the cabinet
secretary are invariably members of the commissions. As for scientists,
not only is the chairman an eminent atomic/space scientist or engineer,
but he is also the secretary of the executive arm of the commission
concerned viz. the departments of atomic energy or space. The
members (R&D) of the commissions are usually the directors of the
largest or principal R&D centre of the atomic energy and space
programmes respectively viz. the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre
(BARC) and the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC). To give the
commissions the semblance of not being entirely “in-house affairs,” one
eminent scientist from outside the atomic and space programmes is also
made a member. But most often the scientist concerned has little
detailed knowledge of the atomic or space programmes. So, the
commissions are, in fact, wholly in-house structures de-facto.
Continuity till realisation
Third,
and very importantly, exactly what projects the departments or R&D
centres concerned should take up and how the entire atomic and space
programmes should be structured in terms of goals, modalities,
sequences, costs and time frames of realisation are defined by the
chairman and the member (R&D) as an internal process. In other
words, the programme goals are chosen and then attempted to be achieved
by the same people. We thus have a situation of a “self-fulfilling
prophesy.” There is no one to ask, for example, why there should be a
Chandrayaan programme related to the Moon, or, the Mars mission and/or
whether we, as a nation, should not set ourselves a different set of
goals. This may be contrasted with the situation of the DRDO which has
users external to it viz. the defence services and it is those services who define and set programme and project goals.
Success and failure
Fourth,
as the goals of the atomic energy and space programmes are set totally
internally, there is none to hold the commissions and departments
concerned accountable for failures or project delays or escalations in
project costs of a very large magnitude, e.g. the prototype fast breeder
reactors in the case of atomic energy and the GSLV (Geosynchronous
Satellite Launch Vehicle) in the case of space. In contrast, in the case
of the DRDO, the defence service concerned and the Secretary (Finance)
in the Defence Ministry call in such circumstances not only for project
reviews but, on occasions, for project termination and the going in for
the import of the weapon system concerned, quite apart from massive
pillorying of the DRDO.
Fifth, in atomic energy and
space whether one should go in for import or pursue further R&D on a
badly delayed project is a decision taken by an entity that is both
designer and developer and user rolled into one. For example, if
Chandrayaan succeeds or fails, there are no external consequences or
implications. However, in the case of defence systems under design and
development by the DRDO in one of its laboratories, the consequences of
success or failure have a direct bearing on national security and the
credibility of the DRDO in the eyes of the Defence Minister and all
other elements of the Defence Ministry.
Finally, and
partly related, is the fact that the DRDO is doing its design and
development under the overhang of constant lobbying by foreign
suppliers, that the defence system concerned is either too complex and
difficult for the DRDO to release or that the DRDO will need much more
time to develop it, whereas they can supply the system to the defence
service concerned practically off the shelf! Such a situation just does
not arise in the case of atomic energy or space.
To
sum up: setting up a defence R&D commission will make little
difference by way of increasing self-reliance in defence systems and
equipment, or changing for the better the relations between the DRDO and
the defence services because of the fundamental dynamics of that
relationship. What it can achieve, however, is to increase the
administrative and financial powers of the DG, DRDO and the autonomy of
functioning of the DRDO laboratories. Though a more modest achievement,
it may still make it worthwhile to have a commission for the DRDO.
(Ashok
Parthasarathi is former S&T adviser to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
and Secretary to the Government of India in several S&T
departments.)
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