NEW DELHI: More than four months after Dr Samir V Kamat retired as Secretary, Department of Defence R&D and Chairman of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the government is yet to name his successor. The selection file is learnt to be pending with the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), even though five senior scientists were interviewed for the top post in early July.
Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh has been holding additional charge of both posts since Kamat retired in May. Kamat, a materials scientist who earlier headed DRDO's Naval Systems and Materials cluster, took over as DRDO chief in August 2022 and received two one-year extensions.
Those interviewed were B K Das, Director General (Electronics and Communication Systems); Prateek Kishore, DG (Armament and Combat Engineering Systems); Jagannath Nayak, DG (Missiles and Strategic Systems); Anupam Sharma, now DG (Technology Management); and Anindya Biswas, now DG (Aeronautical Systems), sources said. At the time of the interviews, Sharma headed the Special Projects Directorate and Biswas was director of Research Centre Imarat (RCI), Hyderabad.
The search-cum-selection committee was chaired by Cabinet Secretary T V Somanathan. Its other members were Singh, Principal Scientific Adviser Ajay Kumar Sood and former ISRO chairman A S Kiran Kumar. The five were shortlisted from a pool of 15 distinguished scientists recommended by the defence ministry.
Das, the senior-most among the five, was granted a one-year extension in April. Nayak took charge of the missiles cluster just days before the interviews.
The appointment was initially expected after Prime Minister Narendra Modi returned from a three-nation tour in mid-July, and later after Parliament's Monsoon Session. Neither happened.
The vacancy, now over 130 days, is already longer than the one in 2015. That year, after the government prematurely terminated Dr Avinash Chander's contract at the end of January, it took until the end of May to appoint Dr S Christopher, leaving the post vacant for 118 days.
The defence establishment has been disappointed with repeated delays in several DRDO programmes, which has led to a push for long-pending reforms. "Time and cost overruns in DRDO projects have been a sore point for long. The new chief will be expected to fast-track the reforms, not just oversee them," said a source.
It is learnt that all five candidates were asked during the interviews how they would implement the recommendations of the committee headed by former principal scientific adviser K VijayRaghavan. "The reform roadmap was a central part of the discussion with each candidate," said another source.
The report, submitted in July 2024, proposed consolidating DRDO's 41 laboratories into 10 national laboratories and setting up a Defence Technology Council headed by the Prime Minister. It also proposed examining a separation of the DRDO chairman's dual role as head of the organisation and Secretary, Defence R&D.
The committee found that nearly 60 per cent of project delays stemmed from internal shortcomings, including the absence of critical technologies at key stages of development. A parliamentary standing committee had earlier flagged that 23 of DRDO's 55 mission-mode projects could not be completed on time. Implementation of the report stalled amid resistance from senior scientists, before the Prime Minister's Office revived it in September last year with a January 2026 deadline.
The leadership vacuum also comes as DRDO's role is being redefined, with private industry getting a larger share of missile development and production. "The idea is for DRDO to focus on cutting-edge research, while industry takes over production. That shift is already under way," the source mentioned above said.
In August, DRDO invited private firms to become long-term development-cum-production partners for missile and guided-bomb projects, with at least two firms per project. DRDO will transfer the technology free of cost, on a non-exclusive basis, once development is complete. Later that same month, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh approved the transfer of technology for all DRDO-developed conventional missile systems to Indian industry. Strategic missiles such as Agni and the K-series are excluded.
Last month, Rajnath Singh also launched a framework for sharing DRDO-developed software source codes with licensee industries. At the same event, Rajesh Kumar Singh said DRDO had so far entered into more than 2,300 technology-transfer agreements with over 1,100 industries.
Incidentally, Nayak, as DG (Missiles and Strategic Systems), holds DRDO's seat on the board of BrahMos Aerospace, the Indo-Russian joint venture that makes the supersonic cruise missile. A proposal to drop the DG (MSS) from the board and set up a dedicated in-house engineering team within the joint venture was discussed last month, as reported first by the TNIE.
The move would weaken DRDO's link with the joint venture, sources said. "DRDO's missile labs have been central to BrahMos's design, development and testing. An in-house engineering team will reduce the joint venture's dependence on them," said one of them.