After First Extension, Second Extension than Contract without output please spare the country

Subject:  The Appointment Committee of the Cabinet appointed Sh. Avinash Chander on contract basis.

With the passage of time the dignity of the office of Scientific Adviser to RM has taken a nose dive. Initially the organization (DRDO) was headed by eminent scholars and internationally recognized faces like Dr. D S Kothari, Dr. S Bhagavantam, Dr. B D Nagchaudhuri, Prof. M G K  Menon, Dr. Raja Ramanna and Dr. V S Arunachalam  whose scientific contribution were know across the globe.

Unfortunately when the honorary post of the Scientific Adviser to RM was converted to DG, DRDO and Secretary DRD, the takers of the plum post were apolitical. The search committee used to recommend a person with established credentials as the individual would lead 30000 strong scientific/technical workforces and was supposed to deliver products for three defence forces.

The KARGIL War however exposed the credit of DRDO as countrymen were ditched. The justification of successive failures was given as the non-availability of imported critical systems/subsystems, components, etc.

Later, the top offices gave a new theory of system integration instead of developing indigenous systems/subsystems as import substitutes. The successive government was not in a position to analyze properly the role of DRDO and the fallout was that a vacuum was created in the chain of command.

As far as the expenditure is concerned, the office of Scientific Adviser’s focus shifted to infrastructure development (primarily acquiring land, expansion of building and dumping of equipment) instead of research and development of systems.

DRDO consumes Rs. 10000 crores annually.

The scientific community down the channel are preparing justification for annual expenditure and in the absence of ACCOUNTABILITY they simply burry the product in the name of technology demonstration with obsolete technology imported from elsewhere.

When Dr. V K Saraswat, Ex-SA to RM was due to retire after successive extensions. The search committee was ignorant to the requirement of SA to RM’s office and new incumbent Sh. Avinash Chander was selected by ACC out of the 12 officers without having any credential to their account even on national level.

The information revealed under RTI is enclosed for your ready reference.

Honorable Sir, after sixty six years of independence, for first time people of India have given such a great and unprecedented mandate based on your commitment, patriotism and providing avenues for betterment of the country.

The previous government, even after being in office for two successive terms, had failed to implement ACCOUNTABILITY in DRDO. DRDO with passage of time has reduced to a mere organization where the workforce is provided hefty salaries as social commitments.

We hope that DRDO will overhaul thoroughly and with ACCOUNTABILITY enforced, turn into a productive organization.

Currently, DRDO has a large number of scientists in service extensions 60 to 62 and 62 to 64 and the astonishing fact is that maximum are involved in non-scientific activities.

Early address to this “extension business” and “Contract Business” will help to curb the neck deep corruption in DRDO.

It is really strange that in 125 crore families, we have not been able to find the right eligible person and have ended up relying upon contract culture.

With warm regards

Enclosed

1. Copy of RTI reply from CPIO, Cabinet Secretariat