NEW DELHI:The Ministry of Defence is worried over escalating tension, not at the border, but in the corridors of the country’s defence research. The government’s experiment for bifurcating two key posts—Scientific Advisor and Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) chief—which was traditionally held by one person, has not paid much dividend but created an unfortunate turf war between the country’s two top-most defence scientists.
On May 29, the government had appointed Dr S Christopher as the Secretary of the Department of Defence Research and Development (DoDRD) and Director General of DRDO, and Dr G S Reddy as Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar with an intension to develop synergy between armed forces and DRDO, and to make defence research more deliverable.
DRDO has been facing severe criticism for its repeated delays with numerous projects—such as the light combat aircraft Tejas, Nag missile, long-range surface-to-air missile and Airborne Early Warning and Control System—being delayed and overshooting their original cost estimates.
Last month, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) cracked the whip on the premier defence research agency by underlying nine key projects on which government has already spent Rs 16,708 crore and which are still far away from completion. The respective projects-in-charge have been asked to submit monthly update to the government on progress of on-going test trials.
Reddy, the 52-year-old who represents the younger lot, is an eminent missile scientist and had led development of avionics technologies in the critical areas of navigation, embedded computers, control, guidance, simulation, RF and infrared imaging seekers, satellite systems, power supplies, telemetry, ground systems and cybernetics for the Indian missile programme and other defence programmes. While DRDO chief 61-year-old Christopher, an electronics and communication engineer, was heading Bengaluru-based Centre for Air-Borne Systems (CABS) and played a key role in integrating India’s prying plane—Airborne Early Warning and Control system (AEW&C)—on an improvised Embraer aircraft.
According to a top South Block source, after five months of appointment, both the scientists have refused to accommodate and co-ordinate with each other. As the Scientific Advisor, Reddy’s role is to advise the government on scientific aspects of military equipment and logistics and the formulation of research, design and development plans for the equipment required by the three Services. But Reddy has alleged that DRDO headquarters do not keep him in the loop on development of on-going projects. On the other hand, Christopher claims that he is not mandated to share information with Reddy’s office.
Sources further said that Reddy, despite heading Hyderabad-based Research Centre Imarat (RCI), was not invited to the two monthly Departmental Monitoring Committee meets attended by the heads of all 52 laboratories of DRDO. “Reddy has filed a complaint to Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar that he was not called to attend the DRDO’s monthly monitoring meet. Moreover, he was not made member of any selection committee for key appointment in the defence research. He claims that such efforts will ultimately lead to a distance between the Services and defence research,” said a senior official in the South Block.
However, Christopher has explained his position before Parrikar by saying that Reddy is unauthorised to intervene in the day-to-day affairs of DRDO. “The defence minister has intervened to sort out their differences twice. But probably in absence of defined charter of duty, rift is widening,” said an officer.
Incidentally, both Reddy and Christopher were in the race to head DRDO along with 59-year-old Anil Datar, Director General, Armament and Combat Engineering (ACE) cluster and 58-year-old Satish Kumar, Chief Controller, Research and Development at DRDO headquarters, Delhi. But on May 30, a high-level Appointment Committee of Cabinet approved Christopher’s name to head the research organisation.