Tag Archives: TRISHUL

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Every fortnight launching a missile – hidden agenda of DRDO

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Sh. Narendra Modi ji, Honorable Prime Minister when asked about Indo-Pak relations he said “Talks get lost in the noise of bomb blasts.” It was a simple and effective way to convey the message to our neighbor.

Since 1999, when DRDO credentials were on stake due to the exposure of its strength in KARGIL WAR, the then Genral Malik openly criticized the role of DRDO.

DRDO planned to create a thunderous noise to divert the attention of the government and common people of India by simply launching missiles. After smelling the effect, it started missile launching roughly at the interval of fortnights with different variant of missiles like Prithvi, I, II, III, Akash, Agni I, II, III, IV, V, IV Nag, Trishul and ………….

All the developed nations have demonstrated the ability to analyze the failures and incorporated the corrective measures and are able to sell and generate revenue out of their research.

DRDO, however justifies the failures and with thunderous noise tries to divert the attention of government and common people of India who in turn pay crores and crores rupees for the development of missiles.

No practical data showed on photographs of missile launching or hitting the target has been shown to the nation. DRDO always released the launching flight scene but never demonstrated the kill probability. Why the matter of fact as per sources that last month Sh. Avinash Chandra witnessed the target hitting of a 100 KW laser Aditya which was suppose to hit moving targets. It was not able to hit static target, in fact it missed it by meters. The case of 20 KW Coil laser is also an example that without delivering the required output project main 16.58 Cr. equipment was mysteriously burned in fire accident but surprisingly DRDO announced that the project was successful and a successful completion letter from under secretary, MOD, Mr. Deb was put in project file to fool the government and common men of India who are paying the money for their misadventure. And the best part of this is that he project leader Dr. R K Tyagi got scientist of the year award from DRDO.

In 1991 Gulf war, Americans demonstrated the capability of Patriot missile’s hitting and intercepting the Scud missile and the scene was witnessed across the globe.

Can SA to RM demonstrate the same capability to our new Prime Minister Sh. Modi Ji? It will help him plan the defence preparedness to secure the boundary.

DRDO by far has a hidden agenda of launching a missile in every fortnight just to divert the attention of the government and common people of India from the rampant corruption of DRDO misappropriation of funds, misinterpretation of rules, the common practices noticed by the CGDA in special audit of DRDO.

Since the KARGIL WAR, incompetency has flourished in DRDO and has created a void as a result. Those who were supposed to retire from active service have managed during UPA government two to even three extensions with promotions ignoring Honorable Supreme Court and violating DoPT guidelines.

They are involved with 1000 crores of programs (of course without any end result) the commission/omission does not permit them to lose the extra income and perks and they are blessed by the competent authorities.

India has voted for a strong government in the centre and expecting new government will sense the weaker points and fix the accountability of DRDO. The government will look what was the compulsion of previous governments or in which circumstance they gave such unprecedented extension to such selected group of people like

Dr A S Pillai, CC&D, CEO, Brahmos touching 67 years CCR&D since 13th Sep. 1999.

Dr. SK Vasudeva, Ex Director, SPIC, DRDO after three successive extensions now working in contract

Sh Avinash Chander, SA to RM, DG, DRDO, Secretary, DRD presently in second extension and after November 2014 on contractual appointment.

5 Top DRDO senior officials are in second extension

Few directors of Labs are on second extension

And 60 to 62 years extension countless in DRDO

Extension business has created a vacuum in DRDO Hqrs. and if it continues probably there won’t be manpower available from active service to head the Lab and shoulder the responsibility of DRDO’s plan of action. “Here at present nobody is responsible for any outcome”

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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- IV

The DRDO has succeeded with missiles, but…

George Iype

In May 1998, the DRDO and its chief Dr A P J Abdul Kalam became symbols of national pride thanks to the nuclear tests. DRDO’s expertise in explosives and related technologies, and in systems engineering and integration was the key to the five devices tested by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

Four months after the event, the government entrusted DRDO with a Rs 20 billion ballistic missile defence project. This is perhaps the most ambitious programme that DRDO has embarked upon. It would need to integrate the Russian-made anti-aircraft and anti-ballistic missile systems, which the army and air force are planning to induct, with an Israeli fire control radar.

The project, along with the Integrated Guided Missile Development programme and the nuclear submarine programme that DRDO has engaged in over the years, is meant to lay India’s foundation of strategic missile programme and security stability.

But given DRDO’s track record in the IGMD and nuclear submarine programme, not many believe the new ballistic project could come out with flying colours, that too in time.

It is not that DRDO’s missile mission has not taken India to the rarefied heights of missile power. “If there is one area in which DRDO has succeeded with a certain degree of success, it is in missiles,” says Prakash Nanda, a security expert in Bangalore who is currently writing a book on the subject.

“Agni, Prithvi, Akash, Trishul and Nag. All these missiles have made us proud. But the problem is that though a number of flight tests of these missiles have been successfully carried out, DRDO has been unable to induct some of them into the forces,” he says.

For instance, for the last 16 years, DRDO has been building two types of anti-aircraft missiles — Trishul and Akash. According to the government’s defence plans, these surface-to-air missiles were to have replaced the Russian-supplied OSA-AK and Kvadrat systems by early 1990s. But DRDO has been unable to meet the deadlines.

To be specific, the Trishul project began in 1983. The original deadline was 1992. DRDO has spent more than Rs 2.6 billion on the missile, but it is still undergoing trials. Official sources say the major problem with Trishul is that the missile’s command guidance does not work.

Hence, though the defence ministry has entrusted DRDO with the Rs 20 billion project, it is not confident that the agency will accomplish its task in time.

“The anti-ballistic missile programme will languish like the nuclear submarine project, which DRDO has been working on for years now,” a ministry official comments wryly.

Fifteen years ago, the nuclear submarine programme was billed as India’s key to second strike capability after enunciation of the no-first use policy. But after spending millions of rupees, the naval headquarters is now demanding a technical audit of the Advanced Technology Vehicle project, as it is formally known.

The design and development of the nuclear submarine is a joint project of DRDO, the Department of Atomic Energy and the Indian navy. The DRDO, DAE and navy together have spent a whopping total of Rs 20 billion on the ATV — on its design drawings from Russia, civilian construction work, establishing test beds and testing facilities on the east coast and procurement of related equipment.

DRDO sources say the land-based prototype testing facility of the submarine reactor has been completed successfully and a training facility to familiarise with the nuclear submarine’s power plant has also been set up. The submarine’s power plant would use enriched uranium as reactor fuel.

But years after the ATV project was mooted, the submarine’s keel is yet to be laid because DRDO has been unable to decide on its construction design.

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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- I

‘How long should we wait?’

George Iype

DRDO is responsible for indigenising and constantly upgrading the country’s weapons and equipment inventory and related supplies. But the dilemma has always been to determine the correct balance between make or buy.
The Kargil Review Committee Report
Make. Or buy?

That has been a longstanding issue between the DRDO and the Services. The former complains that the armed forces make impossible demands. The Forces say the DRDO has failed to develop the frontiers of defence technology. And that its claim to produce anything and everything has virtually strangulated critical defence exports.

Experts say it was in fact the collapse of the Soviet Union that drove home the urgency to reduce dependence on external suppliers and rely on indigenous defence production. “Thus over the years, the DRDO has been volunteering to produce virtually anything for the Indian forces. The result is that it has now accumulated nearly 1,000 projects. The DRDO does not have the capability to accomplish some of these,” says Rajendra Mohan, an independent defence analyst in Hyderabad.

According to Mohan, the DRDO promises to make anything for the Forces simply to keep many of its laboratories running. “Or else, some of the labs would have already been shut,” he points out.

Experts like Mohan argue that the very method of calculating the indigenisation content of defence development and production is a matter of debate. Over the years, the government has set up 10 committees under the Department of Defence Production to identify the scope of items such as aircraft, electronics warfare systems and armament. Based on their reports, the government had been claiming for more than a decade that the self-reliance and indigenisation content will be brought up to 70 per cent before 2000.

The core point as per this plan is minimising imports and inducting indigenously designed and manufactured systems. The stress was on increased research and development and the DRDO was the agency to implement it.

But last year, the government — after a thorough review of the DRDO — admitted that the indigenisation level still remained at only 30 per cent. It then quickly created a Self Reliance Implementation Council, chaired by then DRDO chief and now scientific advisor to the prime minister, Dr Abdul Kalam. The Council’s aim is to take indigenisation to 70 per cent by 2005. But many believe like all other DRDO targets, this deadline would also slip.

DRDO scientists claim they have made significant achievements on indigenisation and in their efforts to meet the requirements of the armed forces. They include flight simulators for aircraft, 68mm reusable rocket pod, brake parachute for fighter aircraft, mini remotely-piloted vehicle, light field gun, a new family of light weight small arms systems, charge line mine-clearing vehicle for safe passage of vehicles in the battlefield, and illuminated ammunitions for enhancing night fighting capabilities in their list of achievements.

The DRDO has also developed a cluster weapon system for fighter aircraft, naval mines, next generation bombs for high speed aircraft, low-level tracking radars Indra-I and II for the army and air force, light field artillery radar, battlefield surveillance radar, advanced ship sonar systems and torpedo launchers.

“Our biggest success and pioneering work has been the testing five nuclear devices during May 11-13, 1998 in the Pokhran range,” claims a DRDO scientist.

In collaboration with the Department of Atomic Energy, DRDO in fact designed, tested and produced advanced detonators, ruggedised high volt trigger systems, interface engineering, systems engineering and systems integration to military specifications for the nuclear blast.

“Like the nuclear bomb project, several high-technology projects are in various stages of design and development. Therefore, it is ridiculous to allege that we are a useless bunch of scientists for the armed forces,” the scientist adds.

Indeed, the problem is that for years DRDO has been enmeshed in several high-technology projects that no one really knows when the armed forces will be able to induct.

“DRDO has been acting like a dog in the manger. The agency has considerably torpedoed our efforts to import state of the art equipment because it has been boasting to make every available defence equipment that we demand,” an army officer says angrily.

For instance, he says, though the defence ministry sanctioned competence build-up projects for the multi-barrel rocket launcher Pinaka in the 1980s, DRDO is nowhere near accomplishing the target. The delay has forced the army to continue to depend upon their existing outdated system, whose range is much less compared to that envisaged for Pinaka.

Concerned about terrible delays in some of the vital projects, the army, the air force and the navy are these days asking just one question: “How long should we wait?”

For the Forces, these projects are lifelines. They include India’s indigenously built surface-to-air missiles Trishul and Akash which were to have replaced the Russian-supplied OSA-AK and Kvadrat systems in 1990. Then there is the most ambitious multi-role fighter, the light combat aircraft, the indigenous production of which DRDO has been grappling with in the last 17 years.

The main battle tank Arjun, incorporating state-of-art tank technologies with superior fire power, high mobility and excellent protection has been developed by DRDO. But the army is unhappy with its performance.

There are growing concerns among the Forces, and politicians and defence experts about the terrible delays of the DRDO and its ability to keep promises. For at stake is not just the concept of indigenisation, but a huge investment of more than Rs 150 billion that the government has made for the last two decades on various projects. Would the money be completely wasted?

“Weapon systems face obsolescence very fast. So the DRDO will have to either give up some projects or reorient its functioning,” says Mohan.

Yet, DRDO has been mouthing the political platitude of indigenisation by postponing the deadlines of LCA, Pinaka, Trishul, Akash, nuclear submarines and several types of electronics warfare systems for the army, air force and navy.

The Kargil conflict last year exposed the chinks in DRDO’s armour. None other than Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee echoed the Forces’s worries when he told DRDO directors on August 6, 1999: “Technology needed for mountain warfare is to be given the highest priority.”
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.