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Chinks in the Armour – What ail DRDO, India’s Premier Defence Organigation?

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Rediff.com – News-Special Part- V

‘Kalam has been promoting himself, not self-reliance’

George Iype

Avul Pakir Jainulabeen Abdul Kalam, who headed DRDO for years, is credited with drawing up the blueprint for India’s entry into the league of developed nations. He is the protagonist of the government’s grand plans to make indigenisation of defence products a reality.

If he could transform DRDO from a moribund, bureaucratic government organisation to an establishment that fights for self-reliance in defence production, will Kalam’s effort to build aircraft, war machines and missiles on the Indian soil bear fruit?

Many acknowledge that despite technology denials and control regimes enforced by the developed countries, Kalam imbibed a high-end research and development initiative in DRDO laboratories that the government, academic institutions and the industry now look at him in awe.

Thanks to Kalam, DRDO now has a leading role in generating technologies and secure systems in the field of information technology which could change the quality of life in defence forces. Under his stewardship, the organisation created the critical components and devices that will be the backbone of state-of-the-art electronic systems in defence.

Many claim Kalam’s discovery has been a turning point in India’s history and national security. But these days the boat owner’s son from Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu is setting sail on just one massive project — take India to self reliance in defence production at least 70 per cent by 2005.

It is because of Kalam that India can now boast of the ambitious indigenisation Plan 2005. Plan 2005 is not just about making weapons indigenously. It is the symbol of national pride.

Years after it professed the indigenisation mantra, the government sheepishly admitted last year that only 30 per cent of Indian weapons were of domestic origin. The realisation prompted it to turn to Kalam. It then immediately created a Self-Reliance Implementation Council headed by Kalam that will implement Plan 2005.

Is DRDO’s aim to achieve 70 per cent indigenisation in the defence system realistic in the wake of unaccomplished high profile projects like the Light Combat Aircraft, Arjun main battle tank, the missile and nuclear submarine programmes? But can Kalam deliver?

Not many believe that Kalam will accomplish 70 per cent self-reliance by 2005. The task us gigantic. More than one-third of the budget for the missile programme, the Arjun MBT and the LCA has gone into imports of critical components. More imports are to follow as DRDO’s indigenous engine programme, especially for the LCA, is on the verge of collapse.

“Indigenisation is a hoax. Kalam is spreading it boasting that he will attain self-reliance in defence equipment in five years time. Indigenisation should have been the DRDO motto when it was established in the 1950s, not in 2000,” says an army officer.

Many within the army, the air force and the navy, who have been waiting in vain for DRDO-developed defence equipment and electronic warfare systems, claim Kalam has been promoting himself, and not self-reliance.

“Both DRDO and Kalam have failed to win over the armed forces because many of their projects have become serious stumbling blocks for the forces’ modernisation,” the army officer adds.

The accusations against Kalam are three — that he did not create a good research and development culture in DRDO, that his relationship with the armed forces has been rocky and that he did not embark on any plan to stem the brain drain from DRDO.

Designing and developing defence weapons is perhaps the toughest engineering task. But experts claim DRDO suffers from a poor research and development culture thanks to Kalam.

“DRDO under Kalam has done more on public relations than on proper research and development. That is the reason why many of our projects like LCA are terribly lagging behind in schedules,” says Shankar Sen Chaudhury, an independent technical analyst based in Hyderabad.

“The structural environment in DRDO labs have to change if effective results in indigenisation is to take place,” he adds.

Another problem is the rocky relationship that Kalam has with the armed forces. He and his colleagues argue that the forces do not have any specialists who understand the design and development concepts of DRDO. “Therefore, the armed forces always interfere in our projects halfway through,” a DRDO scientist says.

Many say this messy relationship between DRDO, “the seller” and the three armed forces, “the buyers”, should be blamed on both sides. “Kalam was a marketing man. He wanted to hard-sell his half-baked DRDO products to us, like the Arjun tank,” says an army officer.

But DRDO asks: When the forces induct imported products without any trails, why can’t they rely on indigenous products? DRDO officials say the only reason for this is that the army does not have the experience to induct an indigenous weapon system.

DRDO has been mouthing the politically correct mantra of indigenisation because a number of disgruntled scientists in the organisation charge, “Dr Kalam is a politician.”

His critics say the problem is that India’s defence programmes is a one-man show. “Only Kalam is recognised and acknowledged. It is ridiculous that thousands of us are working there, and only one man is framed in a glass house. That is the precise reason for the high rate of brain drain from DRDO,” a disgruntled DRDO engineer said.

The rate at which scientists and engineers are leaving the laboratories is a cause for grave concern. According to a survey, more than 3 per cent of scientists and engineers leave the organisation every year in search of attractive salaries and perks.

“We have been demanding better salary packages and service conditions. But neither Kalam nor the government has listened,” says the engineer.

A section of DRDO scientists are now happy that the organisation is no longer under Kalam. Ever since the new chief, Dr Vasudev K Aatre, took over in December, things are looking up. One of the his first decisions was to initiate a university interactive programme for DRDO scientists. Now, professors of premier science institutes like the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore will spend time with DRDO scientists on specific research projects.

Dr Aatre is also taking a few radical decisions — he is on the verge of dropping some projects that the organisation has failed to execute in many years.

TOMORROW: ‘DRDO is like the Indian cricket team’
“They have been pampered with money and praise that they cannot just deliver,” remarks Major General (retd) Ashok Mehta.

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Chinks in the Armour – What ail DRDO, India’s Premier Defence Organigation?

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Rediff.com – News-Special Part- II

‘The LCA won’t take off in the near future’

George Iype

The Light Combat Aircraft is perhaps the most ambitious of all DRDO projects. But 17 years and four postponements of its test flight later, the multi-role fighter meant to replace the MiG-21 is still a dream.

What has happened to the LCA, the most technologically complex challenge that DRDO had taken up? Air force officers, DRDO scientists and defence experts say it remains grounded because of “scores of technical problems.”

The delay has hurt the air force badly and dented the DRDO’s image. A country that has not designed a jet fighter in decades had been waiting long for one. India had designed and produced the HF-24 aircraft in the early 1960s, but its engine was British.

Such was the enthusiasm behind the LCA that in 1985 the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi showcased it as a symbol of the new era of co-operation and friendship between India and the United States. Gandhi even overrode the claims of the French and Germans who had been collaborating with DRDO and the Bangalore-based Hindustan Aeronautical Limited for the LCA production.

The original deadline to fly the aircraft was 1993. The cost, Rs 5.6 billion. The DRDO and HAL did roll out an LCA in the presence of then prime minister P V Narasimha Rao on November 17, 1995. DRDO top brass then announced that the maiden flight would take place in early 1997. The dates were revised to June 1998 and then to February 1999.

Years passed by, but no test flight took place. Today the deadline for the LCA has become a joke in defence circles.

The most scathing criticism of the project came from the Comptroller and Auditor General of India who, in his 1999 report, said: ‘Even at the end of 1998, the LCA had not crossed the development stage. Its production and induction into the air force remains only a distant possibility.’

The CAG report went on to add that the airframe for LCA developed by the DRDO’s Bangalore laboratory, the Aeronautical Development Agency ‘is deficient in vital parameters of aerodynamic configuration, volume and most importantly, the weight.’

The first phase of the project consumed Rs 25 billion, overshooting the estimated Rs 5.6 billion. Worse, due to the delay, the air force was compelled to upgrade its MiG Bis aircraft at a cost of Rs 21.35 billion.

Scientists at DRDO, ADA and HAL concede one thing: the LCA has run into some serious technical problems. LCA is a meticulous fly-by-wire aircraft, which is critically dependent on software to fly.

“But over the years, we have not been successful in fully testing the software. Therefore, we face difficulties in integrating the system,” admits an engineer at HAL.

Since the aircraft depends on computers, no pilot wants to risk a flight test without thoroughly validating the system. Scientists say the trials intended to test the dynamic stability of the airframe and the LCA’s engine-flight control system has been successful. Though the engine and the electronics are in the advanced test mode, the aircraft’s ability to withstand low pressure and temperature at high altitudes is suspect.

“There is reason enough to worry that the LCA will not take off in the near future,” says Bangalore-based aviation expert P N Srivastava.

“I feel the delay is primarily due to the fact that it took years for a country like India to get the advanced technology for the project,” he says. “The idea for LCA was born without having any requisite technology on our side,” Srivastava points out.

DRDO officials put forward one reason for the project delay — sanctions from the United States after the Pokhran nuclear blasts. In a bid to force India to put the nuclear genie back into the bottle, the US has pulled out of the project soon after the tests.

Thus, just one week after the explosions in May 1998, many scientists working on different fields linked to the LCA at aerospace giant Lockheed Martin in Binghamton, New York, were asked to pack their bags for India by the United States. The Indian engineers were working to validate a computerised control law software for onboard computers which will ultimately fly the aircraft.

As it imposed sanctions, the US also denied key components like hydraulic actuators — that help manoeuvre the aircraft, gain altitude and determine the trajectory — and the ring-laser gyros to make inertial navigation systems.

“One of the main reasons for the delay is that technological sanctions from the US hit us badly. Had it not been for the nuclear blasts, our deadline to test fly the aircraft would have been successful in December 1998,” says a senior DRDO official.

Lockheed Martin refused to give the DRDO the flight control computer, which was in the US for testing, when sanctions were announced, he added.

Another major hurdle for DRDO is the LCA’s engine. As per its agreement with the US, India was allowed to purchase frontline 404 engines from General Electric. In fact, DRDO imported 11 such engines and fitted them on to the early versions of the aircraft, pending the development of the indigenous Kaveri engine being developed by Bangalore’s Gas Turbine Research Establishment.

But after the nuclear tests, GE withdrew its technical support personnel from India and DRDO was forced to depend only on Kaveri. Sources now say it will take at least two years to determine whether Kaveri engines can withstand the low pressure and temperature at high altitudes.

No one at DRDO, ADA and HAL believes that the LCA will fly before 2005.

Experts say the delay should be examined in the context of a country that has not designed and produced a jet fighter since the 1960s. Development of every vital component of the LCA — airframe, multimode radar, flight control system, Kaveri engine, digital electronic engine control – are said to be beset with problems.

Scientists at DRDO, for their part, hold the defence ministry partially responsible for the delay. Between 1990 and 1994, all work came to a virtual standstill as the defence ministry refused to release the much-needed foreign exchange because of economic stringency.

But the biggest worry for DRDO is not the bureaucratic delays and sanctions, but the Indian air force. Faced with diminishing number of its ageing fleet, the IAF holds DRDO responsible for promising to deliver the LCA before year 2,000, thereby considerably upsetting many of its aircraft acquisition plans.

Suspecting that DRDO will never deliver the LCA, the IAF has now embarked on an ambitious project to upgrade 100 MiG-21 aircraft.

Despite the heavy odds, DRDO still remains confident that it will roll out the country’s first indigenous aircraft before 2002.

“We will induct 200 LCAs into the Indian Air Force between 2003 and 2010,” Dr Abdul Kalam told a group of aeronautical scientists before he handed over DRDO’s charges to Dr Vasudev K Aatre.

But there aren’t many who believe that promise will be fulfilled.