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CAG picks holes in LCA project, says it fails to meet IAF requirements

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tejas ET 8 may 2015
Not only that, IAF would be “constrained” to induct the fighter LCA without availability of a trainer model, thereby “adversely impacting pilot training.”

By PTI | 8 May, 2015, 07.40PM IST – The Economic Times
NEW DELHI: India’s Tejas Light Combat Aircraft project, in the works for over three decades, came under severe criticism from CAG today as it pointed out that its Mark-I version has 53 “significant shortfalls” which have reduced its operational capabilities as well as survivability.

Not only that, IAF would be “constrained” to induct the fighter LCA without availability of a trainer model, thereby “adversely impacting pilot training”, the audit body said in a report tabled in Parliament.

The CAG noted that it was due to the delay in the manufacture and supply of LCA that IAF had to go for alternative temporary measures such as upgrading its MIG BIS, MiG-29, Jaguar, and Mirage aircraft at a cost of Rs 20,037 crore and revise the phasing out of MiG-21s.

“LCA Mark-I, which achieved Initial Operational Clearance (December, 2013) has significant shortfalls (53 permanent waivers/concessions” in meeting ASR (Air Staff Requirements) as a result of which it will have reduced operational capabilities and reduced survivability, thereby limiting its operational employability when inducted into IAF squadrons,” the report said.

Listing the shortcomings, the CAG said that the LCA Mark- I fails to meet the electronic warfare capabilities sought by IAF as the Self-Protection Jammer could not be fitted on the aircraft due to space constraints.

Also, it said that the Radar Warning Receiver/Counter Measure Dispensing System fitted on the aircraft had raised performance concerns which are yet to be overcome till January this year.

It added that the shortcomings in the Mark-I (increased weight, reduced internal fuel capacity, non-compliance of fuel system protection, pilot protection from front, reduced speed) are expected to be overcome in the Mark-II model.

“LCA Mark-I does not meet the ASR. The deficiencies are now expected to be met in LCA Mark-II by December 2018,” the CAG said.

IAF had proposed in the early 1980s that a new aircraft be developed to replace the MiG-21 fleet, manufactured during 1966 and 1987, after its phasing out in the 1990s.

The project for indigenous design and development of LCA was sanctioned in 1983 at a cost of Rs 560 crore, which was enhanced from time to time up to Rs 10,397.11 crore.

The government in June, 1984, constituted an Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) as a dedicated institution for the management of the LCA project.
IAF had issued Air Staff Requirement (ASR) in October, 1985, envisaging a light-weight multi-mission fighter with contemporary air combat and offensive air support capabilities and excellent manoeuvrability for close air combat at low and medium altitudes.

The projected requirement was for 220 Light Combat Aircraft (200 Fighters, 20 trainers) to be inducted by 1994.
However, LCA could only achieve Initial Operational Clearance in December, 2013, as against the earlier scheduled date of December, 2005.

The Full Operational Clearance (FOC), which was scheduled to be completed by December, 2008, is now slated to be achieved by December this year although experts said even that could be delayed.

The CAG said that ADA’s decision to advance the building of two prototypes from Full-Scale Engineering Development (FSED) Phase-II to FSED Phase-I so as to utilise its savings on the grounds of accelerating the development process of LCA had failed to yield the desired results.

This, the report said, was because preponed prototypes were deficient in terms of critical onboard systems (Multi- Mode Radar, Self-Protection Jammer, Radar Warning Receiver) and led to ADA using the Limited Series Production (LSP) aircraft (meant for IAF use) towards flight testing/evaluation of these critical on board systems.

“This was in contravention of the Cabinet approval (November, 2001) for phased development of the prototypes in FSED Phase-II after Technical Demonstrators had been built and flight tested for 210 hours,” CAG said.

Talking about lack of trainer aircraft, the audit body said that IAF was in the interim using an upgraded Full Mission Simulator (FMS) at ADA for pilot training, pending supply of an FMS by HAL at the LCA operating base.

It said that the long gestation period led to a change of weapon systems on LCA, necessitating the acquisition of new ones.

The audit body also had a word of appreciation for the ADA, saying its work centres on the indigenous development of the LCA, “which is comparable to many contemporary aircraft in the world”.

CAG said that the manufacturing facilities at HAL cater presently to the production of only four aircraft per annum as against the envisaged requirement of eight due to delays in procuring plant and machinery, tools and also construction of production hangars, which would further impact production of LCA and induction into IAF squadrons.

Repair and Overhaul (ROH) facility for LCA, as specified in the ASR, has not been created fully at HAL, the CAG said.

Of the 344 Line Replaceable Units of LCA, 90 LRUs were considered non-repairable, it said. Of the remaining 254 LRUs, while ROH facilities in respect of 185 were available, the same was yet to be established for 69 LRUs as of January this year, the report added.

The CAG stressed on the need for more efficient management of planning and execution of aircraft development programmes, closer interaction and coordinated efforts among all the stakeholders involved.
It recommended that realistic timelines should be set by MoD while seeking approval for such projects from the government and that the same ..

should be adhered to during their execution with coordinated planning and an effective in-built monitoring mechanism.

“In view of the complexity of the technology involved, while deviating from the approved plan of development, ADA should consult the user (Air HQ) and obtain prior approval of sanctioning authority/ministry for such deviations so as to minimise waivers and concessions at the time of acceptance by the user (IAF),” it said.

The agencies — DRDO, ADA and HAL — should undertake the projects strictly in conformity with the specifications projected by IAF, who should be involved right from the planning stage so as to ensure timely achievement of their requirements.

Indigenisation efforts should be made in coordination with all the agencies involved by having a well-defined indigenisation plan and a clear roadmap for developing a quality product as per the requirement so as to avoid import substitution, it said.

“MoD should award contract to production agency at an appropriate stage of development of a system/equipment in order to avoid the necessity of extending delivery schedule due to a delay in the development of the system, apart from the resultant blocking of funds/inventory and to overcome obsolescence of the components procured by the production agency,” the CAG said.

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Desi defence showpieces powered by videshi parts

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Rajat Pandit, TNN Jan 13, 2014, 01.39AM IST

NEW DELHI: The Tejas light combat aircraft, 30 years in the making, is just 60% indigenous as of now. The story of the indigenous Arjun main battle tank is even worse. First sanctioned in May 1974, 55% of the tank is still made of imported parts. This is the recurring theme across India’s fledgling defence industrial base (DIB), with the government failing to whip DRDO and its sprawling empire of over 50 laboratories as well as the five defence PSUs, four shipyards and 50 ordnance factories into shape.
The defence ministry, with its constant flip-flops, has also failed to spur the domestic private sector into entering the defence production sector in a big way. Neither has it managed to attract foreign direct investment (FDI), notching up a measly $5 million in the last 14 years.toi1

AK Antony may often tom-tom “indigenisation” as one of his guiding mantras, which he feels can curb corruption, but the ground reality has hardly changed in the over seven years he has been at the helm in MoD. India continues to wallow as the world’s largest arms importer, with the armed forces still getting around 65% of their military hardware and software from abroad.
In sharp contrast, China has emerged as the fastest growing arms exporter around the globe after assiduously building a strong DIB. It’s now hawking fighter jets, warships, missiles and smaller arms to countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Bolivia and Zambia.

But a “proper ecosystem” has simply not been erected in India. As if the “high import content” in the so-called indigenous projects was not enough, insiders say even the much-touted transfer of technology (ToT) provision build into large defence contracts with foreign manufacturers is a bit of a sham.

“Indian PSUs focus more on just assembling knocked-down kits from foreign vendors instead of properly absorbing technologies,” said a senior official, pointing to the ongoing “licensed production” of the Russian-origin Sukhoi-30MKI fighters by Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL).

India has inducted almost 200 of the 272 Sukhois contracted for well over $12 billion from Russia, with HAL producing most of the fighters. “As per plans, HAL should have begun making Sukhois completely from raw material two-three years ago. But there has been a big delay,” he said.

“Moreover, the cost of each HAL-manufactured Sukhoi is almost Rs 100 crore more than if the same fighter was directly imported from Russia (the last 42 Sukhois ordered cost over Rs 450 crore each),” he added.

DRDO does have a point that funds allocated for defence R&D are not adequate. “We just get slightly over 5% of the total defence budget. The US defence R&D budget is around 12%, while China has 20%,” said a scientist.

But not many are impressed, pointing to huge time and cost overruns in almost all DRDO projects. While the indigenous development of Tejas, Arjun and other weapon systems is certainly to be cheered, the high import content in them remains another source of worry.

Take Tejas, which finally achieved its initial operational clearance last month. It has an American engine, British ejection seat, Canadian canopy sheath and Israeli radar. “A major chunk of its avionics and weapons are also imported. The series production of the Tejas Mark-II version, which is what IAF actually wants, is unlikely to begin before 2022,” said an officer.
The Army, in turn, has inducted 124 Arjun Mark-I tanks, while trials are currently in progress for the Mark-II version with 89 “upgrades or improvements”. The tank is just about 45% indigenous as of now, with its main laser guided missile being the Israeli LAHAT. “Arjun’s missile firing control system, laser target designator, engine transmission, suspension unit and running gear (track) are all foreign,” said an Army officer.

India has fared relatively better on the naval front, with all the 45 warships currently on order being constructed in Indian shipyards. Officials say India has achieved 80-90% indigenisation in the “float” (warship’s structure, hull etc), 50-60% on the “move” (propulsion) and 30% on the “fight” (weapons and sensors) components.

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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.

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DRDO gets it right when it works unlike DRDO

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Express Investigation: Delayed Research; Delayed Organisation – Part – Seven

DRDO gets it right when it works unlike DRDO

Amitav Ranjan
Posted: Sat Nov 18 2006, 00:00 hrs
NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 17:


For all its defences against non-performance, the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO), ironically, has only to look within for ready templates of distinction. Programmes that have met targets are an isolated few but they worked well because their ethic symbolizes a fundamental breakaway from the tedium of the larger organisation’s default approach. Self-reliance, a term battered by DRDO’s track-record on showpiece programmes, shines beneath the hood in the Navy’s sonars, avionics and electronic warfare systems on IAF fighter aircraft and missiles developed under corporate foreign joint ventures.
The first two were developed on time because of the labs linking up with the armed forces right from the initial stages and, significantly, leadership that keeps young scientists on their toes. The latter, because international partnerships mandate a more professional approach to programme completion.
One of the most successful DRDO laboratories is also one of the least known, tucked away silently in the Trikkakara suburb of Kochi, fomenting applied research and technology to give the Navy real self-reliance in critical sensor systems.

The Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory (NPOL), the only DRDO lab to win both the Silicon Trophy and Titanium Trophy for excellence, has, in the last two decades, given the Navy an impressive 87 per cent self-reliance in acoustic sensors for warships and submarines. All Navy warships, including foreign ones, as a result, are fitted with DRDO sonars like the APSOH, HUMVAD and HUMSA, and the Navy does not need to import. Now, it is putting its finishing touches to the USHUS sonar for the Navy’s Kilo-class submarines and the Mihir dunking sonar for HAL’s Advanced Light Helicopter, all well within their projected timeframes.

Vice Admiral Madanjit Singh, formerly the Navy’s Southern Commander at Kochi, said, “The NPOL’s success is from user involvement right from the word go. The steering panel is headed by a serving Naval commander who sets the agenda, efforts between the DRDO and Navy are joint.”

VK Aatre, former NPOL director who went on to become DRDO chief, agrees. “When I was there, we could not distinguish between designers, Navy personnel and production engineers,” he said. “We shared an excellent rapport. The difference here was that the user was part of the design team.”

The lab’s current director V Chander, an IIT-IISc alumnus, has espoused applied research like no other DRDO establishment, working not for idealistic invention, but delivering quality, fool-proof sonar systems to the Navy. How?

First, he’s rechristened the HR cell as People, Academics, Research & Training. He’s made sure young scientists get to spend time with the Navy for extended periods of time rather than labour away only in their laboratories. Third, he’s made sure that the level of involvement with warships and the Navy is so high that projects are either completed or prudently foreclosed before despondence and lassitude can set in.

Vice Admiral Singh, as DG Defence Planning in 2000, recommended to the Task Force on the Reorganization of Higher Defence Planning, that the country’s R&D labs be rationalized on the lines of NPOL. What ensued, another story entirely, was a turf war that saw the idea quietly dissipate. Another area where DRDO has shone despite itself is avionics and electronic warfare systems for IAF fighter aircraft.

The IAF’s most advanced fighter, the Sukhoi-30 MKI, flies with avionics developed by the Defence Avionics Research Establishment (DARE) in Bangalore, and has proved so good that the new British Hawk advanced jet trainers and the license-produced units of the upcoming contract for 126 foreign fighters, will be armed with DARE avionics and electronic warfare systems.

For now, in addition to the Sukhois, these arm IAF Jaguars and MiG-27s which, combined, have over 30 DARE electronic systems, including mission computers, electronic warfare suites, laser rangers and multifunction advanced cockpits.

A testimony to DARE’s work: in 2003, the Royal Malysian Air Force ordered radar computers worth Rs 21.15 crore (75 per cent of DRDO’s officially declared export value of Rs 27.93 crore) from DARE for its Sukhoi-30MM fighter fleet, and is interested in buying more.

Air Marshal JS Gujral, formerly IAF Central Air Commander and Deputy Chief in charge of acquisitions, feels DARE has done an excellent job in a world where such technology is simply too advanced to share. “DARE’s projects have succeeded also because of deep interfacing with the IAF. They have maintained a high mark in defence output and timeframes compared to DRDO’s other not-so-successful ventures. Across the board, the avionics and electronic warfare systems by DARE match up with the best in the world. The IAF has been very happy with what they have provided us,” Gujral said. DARE Director RP Ramalingam said, “DRDO has realized that if there is a WW III, the winner will be the side that can best control the electromagnetic spectrum, and has therefore placed India as a competent force in the world map of avionics.”

Foreign joint ventures, on the other hand, have compelled DRDO to put out more realistic predictions on time and cost. The BrahMos missile project, which began development in 1998 as a corporate joint venture with Russia and resulted in a world-class cruise missile that other countries now want to buy, was completed in just six years at a cost of Rs 667 crore – no time and cost overruns.

Similarly, the new generation Barak-II surface to air missile for the Navy, being developed by DRDO in a JV with Israel, is officially to cost Rs 2, 606.02 crore and be ready by May 2011, a far more realistic predictive frame than any other missile project under the indigenous IGMDP.

The defence sector does not have a policy for foreign direct investment, but DRDO open to joint ventures with foreign partners. No wonder then, that on June 7, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence said, “BrahMos model should be followed in other projects also. Private sector should be given more opportunities in defence production and user participation should be encouraged from R&D stage.”
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23 yrs and first fighter aircraft hasn’t taken off

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Express Investigation: Delayed Research; Delayed Organisation – Part – Four

23 yrs and first fighter aircraft hasn’t taken off

Amitav Ranjan , Siv Aroor
Tags :
Posted: Wed Nov 15 2006, 00:00 hrs
New Delhi, November 14:

At its last meeting in December 2005, the General Body of the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), the society developing the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, recorded one fact: the Indian Air Force, despite official plans to ultimately buy 220 LCAs, would order only 20 aircraft.
And that the IAF had refused to push the order up until it’s convinced that the new 2010 deadline, the project’s third consecutive time over-run, would be met.

The IAF had more than a reason.

According to latest official figures that will shortly be tabled by the Standing Committee on Defence in a report for Parliament, available with The Indian Express, DRDO’s 23-year-old indigenous fighter aircraft programme, taken as a whole — including the radar, jet engine and Naval variant — would have wiped away a minimum of Rs 9444.5 crore by 2010. Aggregate cost over-run: Rs 4,094 crore. Delay: 12.5 years and counting.
By DRDO’s own testimony in June to the same committee, there are still “certain complexities,” although it claims it will produce the 20 LCAs on order from the IAF by December 2011. But that would still be understandable if the LCA was in any way ready.

Five months after the ADA meeting, Air chief S P Tyagi communicated in no uncertain terms to then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee that his force could not depend on the programme in the short term. Shortly thereafter, he told The Indian Express: “We have to see if it is a suitably modern aircraft when it is complete. Right now we just cannot take any decisions. We can only wait for initial operational clearance (in 2008).”

The implication: the IAF is not sure if the LCA would have slipped down a few generations by the time it’s inducted. But the Standing Committee only had this to say: “The Committee are constrained to note that, keeping in view the ever-increasing delay in operational clearance of LCA, early induction of the same as IAF squadrons seems to be an unrealistic proposition.”

Just how unrealistic it is is something that has come to characterize the LCA programme ever since its inception in August 1983, and culminating now in a gravely unready fighter aircraft that the IAF could have no choice but to induct in large numbers from 2012.

Consider the following: Despite a battery of nine test pilots who have been embedded with the LCA programme, the IAF has refused to officially certify any technological aspect of the LCA apart from its structural strength, until initial operational clearance (IOC). Air Headquarters said so, in a written reply to this newspaper. The clearance should have been achieved by 2007 but its new schedule is 2008.

After a four-year wait following the rollout of the LCA technology demonstrator in 1997 for a first flight, former Air chief S Krishnaswamy made out an official case in 2003 for a “limited series induction” of the aircraft to give the IAF a chance to familiarize itself. He told The Indian Express, “The LCA is not full in any way, each prototype is different. I was a staunch supporter of indigenisation but am also very critical. How long can you keep on developing a product?”

The eight promised Limited Series Production fighters, envisaged as a part of the Rs 3,301.78 crore second phase of the programme, are nowhere in sight. The LCA, which should have undergone weapons trials by 2003, will now only undergo “dummy” trials in December 2007 according to DRDO chief M Natarajan, putting a big question mark on the possibility of IOC by 2008.

The real problem: the HAL-DRDO multi-mode radar, the very brain that will guide the LCA’s weapons, is not ready. After spending Rs 166.8 crore since 1997, HAL has decided to bring in a foreign technical partner to bail it out. The radar has been tested on an HS-748 Avro, but persistent problems with software and its signal processor have forced HAL and DRDO to admit their failure.

DRDO has justified the delays and their impact on the IAF’s preparedness by pointing to a revision of the development strategy because of a foreign exchange shortage in the 1990s, US sanctions, re-designing composite wings for weapon definition after January 2004 and extensive on-ground and independent evaluation.

After a cost and time overrun of Rs 2,456 crore and 13 years since 1996, DRDO admitted to the Standing Committee in June that it could complete the Kaveri engine only under a foreign joint venture. Problems that have crippled the Kaveri, according to the latest DRDO testimony, include critical glitches in aerodynamic, aero-mechanical, combustion and structural integrity.

Most significantly, DRDO has admitted to the Committee that to improve performance and safety issues, a JV could be attempted. Former DRDO chief V K Aatre said: “When I retired (in August 2004), there were some loose ends in the programme involving the radar and jet engine. But I am surprised they have still not been resolved.”

The DRDO was pulled up in January by the Standing Committee to explain how the LCA’s delays would impact the IAF’s modernization. Their reply: “IAF only can state the possible impact of delay on modernization exclusively due to LCA.”

But at Air HQ, an unofficial and approximate damage analysis of the LCA’s delay, shared with The Indian Express, is to the tune of Rs 11,440 crore in forced upgrades (some variants of the MiG-21 that the LCA was to replace will be forced to serve till 2019-2021 at least) and stop-gap acquisitions.

This does not include the purchase of 126 fighters potentially worth Rs 30,000 crore that the IAF will shortly begin an acquisition process for. In an unusual move, the Naval LCA will use air data systems from Russia’s state-owned Rosobornexport, which will also create a shore-based test facility for the Rs 948.90 crore development. MiG Corporation will conduct a design review and be DRDO’s chief consultant.
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Govt orders review, revamp of DRDO, forms expert panel

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Govt orders review, revamp of DRDO, forms expert panel

Shiv Aroor

Posted: Fri Jan 19 2007, 00:00 hrs

NEW DELHI, JANUARY 18:

Rejecting the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO)’s assertion that its internal workings are adequately monitored, the Government has set up an independent and external committee of experts to conduct a comprehensive review of the DRDO and produce a report by the end of this year to suggest how the organisation be made more efficient and professional.

The dismal track record of the DRDO, highlighted by The Indian Express through a series of investigative reports in November last year, had found an echo in Parliament with Defence Minister A K Antony promising a new system of accountability to keep delays and cost over-runs in check.

The eight-member committee has been asked to conduct a thorough review of DRDO’s administrative, financial and personnel procedures and audits of scientific research work undertaken by the organisation’s laboratories. It will keep tabs on whether the interests of armed forces are being served, monitor time and cost overruns of weapons programmes, draw a roadmap for synergy with private industry and foreign consultants, and recommend strategies on utilising offsets that will now be part of all foreign weapons contracts.

Committee chairperson, Professor P Rama Rao, a former Secretary at the Department of Science & Technology and currently Dr Brahm Prakash distinguished professor at the ISRO, told The Indian Express from Hyderabad: “I will begin applying my mind on the task as soon as the government letter reaches me.”

 

The other committee members are former financial advisor at the Defence Ministry A K Ghosh, former HAL chairman Dr Krishnadas Nair, Samtel Group chairman Satish Kaura and Professor T P Ghoshal from Jadavpur University. The three representatives from the armed forces, all retired, are former DG Artillery Lt Gen C S Cheema, former IAF vice-chief Air Marshal Ajit Bhavnani and Vice-Admiral Pravesh Jaitly, formerly the Navy’s chief of materials.

With the creation of this committee, the Defence Ministry has finally acted upon a crucial recommendation made by the Vijay Kelkar committee almost two years ago, that DRDO’s functioning as a research body needed to be under the purview of a panel of independent experts.

The committee’s mandate is significant considering that the DRDO, last year told the Parliamentary Standing Committee on