<p> “The DRDO neither has the power to impose its products on its customer nor the mandate or capacity to produce the developed systems all by themselves,” DRDO chief V K Saraswat said at a function here on Wednesday, countering the charges made by the three services.<br /><br />The DRDO is often blamed by the three services for the country’s failure in having an indigenous main battle tank (Arjun) or a fighter aircraft (LCA) or various missiles (tardy progress in Aaksh, Trishul and Nag) despite decades of research. In the presence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Defence Minister A K Antony, Saraswat shot back: “It must be understood that the responsibility of self-reliance should be shared by all stake-holders of the Defence Ministry and cannot be placed on the DRDO alone.”<br /><br />The services must understand that while the temptation may be overwhelming to field proven, state-of-the-art imported systems, they too have a role to play in the economic and industrial growth of the country, he said. “No foreign system can be customised to completely address our long-term requirements,” Saraswat said.<br /><br />According to an independent economic analysis, the total production value of the major systems inducted into the services has reached Rs 68,000-crore in the last decade, with the R&D investment of about Rs 3,000 crore per year. <br /><br />Self-reliance index will certainly be enhanced with new major systems like MBT, LCA, Radars and Electronic Warfare Systems being inducted into the services, Saraswat said.<br />The DRDO chief asked for freedom to choose its own production agency in a transparent manner based on the agency’s capacity for technology absorption rather than going by the pricing route solely. <br /><br /></p>
<p> “The DRDO neither has the power to impose its products on its customer nor the mandate or capacity to produce the developed systems all by themselves,” DRDO chief V K Saraswat said at a function here on Wednesday, countering the charges made by the three services.<br /><br />The DRDO is often blamed by the three services for the country’s failure in having an indigenous main battle tank (Arjun) or a fighter aircraft (LCA) or various missiles (tardy progress in Aaksh, Trishul and Nag) despite decades of research. In the presence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Defence Minister A K Antony, Saraswat shot back: “It must be understood that the responsibility of self-reliance should be shared by all stake-holders of the Defence Ministry and cannot be placed on the DRDO alone.”<br /><br />The services must understand that while the temptation may be overwhelming to field proven, state-of-the-art imported systems, they too have a role to play in the economic and industrial growth of the country, he said. “No foreign system can be customised to completely address our long-term requirements,” Saraswat said.<br /><br />According to an independent economic analysis, the total production value of the major systems inducted into the services has reached Rs 68,000-crore in the last decade, with the R&D investment of about Rs 3,000 crore per year. <br /><br />Self-reliance index will certainly be enhanced with new major systems like MBT, LCA, Radars and Electronic Warfare Systems being inducted into the services, Saraswat said.<br />The DRDO chief asked for freedom to choose its own production agency in a transparent manner based on the agency’s capacity for technology absorption rather than going by the pricing route solely. <br /><br /></p>
