Government floated 25 questions to DRDO with intention to improve DRDO
Please give your suggestions through this website which will be a great contribution to implement corrective measures.
Appeal to clean DRDO of corrupt and anti-national officials
change says
first all drdo work on dopt/cvc rule & order.scientist duty only research on new technology no admin and mmg work. admini work for admin staff & mmg work only mmg work.mostly drdo all lab manage limited tender fix for pet vendor of officer. if corruption found in tender case register in cvc without delay.
Anonymous says
SUGGESTIONS TO RM GOI
FOR IMPROVING DRDO FUNCTIONING
1. Background.
DRDO is an organization extensively engaged in the defence research activities for the benefit of the services. Activities range from not only in the design and development of various defensive and offensive weapons and platforms used for services applications but also in the development of support infrastructure and enabling facilities. All these activities are covered through a network of more than about 50 labs spread across the country. The functional and administrative control of these labs are exercised by the DRDO HQr’s Delhi through its various Director Generals(DG) or the erstwhile Chief Controllers (CC) working under the Scientific Adviser (SA) to Raksha Mandri (RM). However it is seen that DRDO is unable to cope up with the various time lines set by the Govt and Services in development of newer technologies and delivery of the technological products in usable conditions in meeting services requirements. Time overruns and Cost overruns besides delay in absorbing the cutting edge technologies are a common thing for DRDO developmental and improvemental projects. This invariably result in services looking towards other developed countries for such technologies for retaining the operational readiness and preparedness in meeting the various adversities and contingencies thereby wastage of country’s precious foreign exchange resources. An attempt is made in highlighting some of the critical areas of Human Resources Management which adversely affects in an indirect manner of the above gray areas.
2. Gray Areas
(a) Director’s Tenure in a Lab. Presently there is no fixed time frame for the tenure of Lab Director’s post. Due to this, there are some Directors who have even completed more than 10 years as the director of the lab or as a second tenure for another Lab. In fact DRDO is the only organization wherein Director’s, Chief Controller’s tenure goes on and on without any limitation in duration period. In this aspect it worth mentioning that in any other Govt Organizations or Public Sector Enterprises or even Services, the tenure of any Director/General Manager‘s/AOC/GOC( Services) never exceed more than four to five years. Some of the consequences adversely affecting DRDO Labs/Organizations due to no time frame in Director’s tenure are the following:-
(i) Existence of Rampant Corruption are plenty in all Labs on account of collusion and nexus between Director of labs with the contractors and suppliers lobby. It is worth mentioning that some of the contractors and supplier firms Heads are close relatives/intimate friends of Directors and their caucus group. Thus manipulation of the project fund to the benefit of Director’s and his group goes smoothly without any hindrance from anywhere else. On similar lines where Military Aviation Type Approval is to be given for firms for supplying stores in Aviation Airborne domains, there is a clear dilution on the procedure for according such type approvals. The nexus between the director of the lab and the firm lobby work in tandem such that the stringent certification/qualification and validation procedures on design, development, manufacturing and quality standards are pushed to the background and follows the approval. Net effect of all above is that quality of the product and operability of the technological services suffers greatly leading to enormous delay in the refined product & services delivery to the Defense services.
(ii) Favoritism & nepotism are common norms in most of the labs whereby Director’s chosen lot & his caucus lobby only grow and flourish while professionally competent & motivated scientist and engineers do not get opportunity to grow in organization. This brings in negativism and demoralization among these scientists & engineers and organization suffer in the long run.
(iii) De-motivation of Professionally & managerially competent scientists & Engineers are occurring at a faster pace due to suffering in the long run due to stagnation at later stages of career progression as there is no scope for vacancies of director’s post or posts beyond like the Chief Controllers. Net effect is that either these motivated lot leave the organization or gets disgusted and stop the motivational work expected out of them.
(b) Retirement Age Extension for Scientists. It has become a common norm in DRDO that majority of scientists reaching to a Grade of Sc G or above gets their retirement extension first with two years & then another two years and so on. While retirement age extension to exceptional scientists can be justified, making this as a common norm for most of the Scientists of G grade and all Outstanding (H) & Distinguished Scientists should be reduced to minimum. Since all these scientists occupy vital appointments as Lab Director and DG’s, their extensions seriously hamper the career prospects of other young and professionally competent scientists & engineers in the long run. If at all there is a need to give retirement extension to a few of exceptionally competent scientists, then they should demit their posts such as Director of lab or DG’s so that they are not empowered with administrative & financial powers and purely function as a scientist in acting as advisory capacity to the scientific and technical issues benefiting the organization. The post thus vacated should go to a new incumbent thereby motivating the HR to higher level.
(c) Posting of Service Personnel to labs. To bring in the practical aspects of operational and maintenance issues of any systems, there is a critical need for posting of enough service personnel at various levels from technicians and even up to lab director’s post level depending upon the nature and role of the defiance labs. For example for an organization dealing with continuing airworthiness and certification role of Military Aviation as the regulatory agency, the lab director should also come from services on rotation basis. Similarly services should also depute officers and technicians to the Civilian Aeronautical & other Quality Assurance Organizations so that services do not suffer in the quality of aero planes, its system eqpt and other eqpts coming out from HAL and other public sector companies dealing with services.
4. Summary of Suggestions.
(a) There should be a fixed tenure for lab Directors say four or Five years only. If they are not getting promoted to CC or not transferred for any other special assignments with age still is there for superannuation at 60 years, then they should demit the Directors/CC post and work as pure scientists in advisory capacity only without any financial or administrative powers.
(b) Extension of Retirement Age beyond 60 years should be limited to bare minimum. Those getting extension should demit from their administratively and financially empowered positions and work as pure scientists in advisory capacity only. If a critical need arise, they even can be brought back to the lab or organization in technical & scientific advisory capacity after the retirement at the age of 60Yrs.
(c) Sufficient Service Personnel at all levels should be posted in all DRDO labs including Directors post where services gets directly affected in its operational preparedness.
A well Wisher From DRDO
Anonymous says
Further to the above, one more point to be add as suggestion for improving DRDO functioning
Duplicity on the Role & Functional Control of CEMILAC. CEMILAC, though comes under the functional and administrative be control of DRDO, for all purposes it is an Airworthiness Regulatory Organization for Military Aviation on the lines of DGCA for Civil aviation or like international airworthiness agencies of EASA for Europe and FAA for US etc. However CEMILAC is construed as a Design Lab under DRDO and reporting to DG(Aero) who is responsible for all the aero cluster lab projects like Kaveri Engine of GTRE or PTAE or RUSTOM of ADE along with the all important LCA project of ADA. Hence it can be seen that there exists a dichotomy wherein Labs reports to DG(Aero) for their projects reviews along with CEMILAC, also reporting to DG(Aero), who should be the design auditing and airworthiness safety ensuring agency for all these aero cluster labs. Thus there is conflict of interest comes in the way of fructification of projects to the satisfaction the Military Customers whereby CEMILAC has to compromise on the safety and airworthiness aspects of the projects at the behest of DG(Aero) to show that projects are reaching the milestones set. Thus typical scenarios like IOC-1, IOC- 2 and so on take place for LCA projects even though LCA is not ready for customer exploitation. To avoid this farce coloring of CEMILAC an independent body for design audit and airworthiness coverage, CEMILAC should be detached from DRDO organizational control set up and be set up as an independent airworthiness and safety regulatory body or a Bureau reporting directly to PMO or RM of Govt of India. Under the new set up, other independent agencies like DGAQA who ensures the GoI Quality Assurance of Military Airborne stores, DGCA, the civil Aviation regulatory Agency along with other envisaged aerospace agencies like an independent flight safety wing for coverage of all Military Services Flight Safety Reqts, an Aerospace Commission for promotion of Aeronautical development in the country can be set up etc can be brought under the new set up. The new organizational set up should be a form of matrix organizational structure with members from all stake holders like Military Services, DRDO Labs, Aviation Public Sector and other specialists from various fields of Aerospace Spectrum.
Conclusions
(a) CEMILAC should be taken out of DRDO set up and clubbed along with DGAQA and DGCA other envisaged new agencies of Aerospace Commission, Combines services Flight Safety Wings and accordinly new aviation regulatory body should be created through a special act of Parliament empowered with appropriate statutory powers for ensuring the required Airworthiness and flight safety aspects in the Aviation sectors of both of Military and Civil Aviation in India
(b) Presently all the extension should be terminated with immediate effect for all those who are on second extension after 60yrs without any rethinking process and for those on first extension, after a thorough review.
A well wisher of DRDO.
Anonymous says
young scientist are not given work that they expect. senior scientist want to involve young scientist for their personal work. promotions are fixed at lab level.