Modi government sets up high power committee to review, redefine DRDO

To overhaul the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has formed a nine-member expert committee led by Prof K Vijay Raghavan to review and redefine the department’s role and submit a report within three months, as directed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Prof. Vijay Raghavan is a former Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India and a key architect of the National Research Foundation (NRF). Other members of the DRDO review committee include: Lt Gen (Retd) Subrata Saha, former Deputy Chief of Army Staff, Vice Admiral S N Ghormade, former Vice Chief of Navy Staff, Air Marshal B R Krishna, former Chief of Integrated Staff, Sujan R Chinoy, DG of MP-IDSA, Prof Manindra Agarwal of IIT Kanpur, S.P. Shukla, President SIDM, J D Patil of Larsen and Tou

The Modi government’s decision to review the functioning of the DRDO and the entire defense research and production eco-system was a much-anticipated development, as the Prime Minister himself was concerned about the lack of accountability and delayed research in the organization that typically functions as a government PSU and views the entire defense process from research to development to production as its own fiefdom.

Rather than supporting the private sector and assisting in the best procurement of hardware platforms for the Indian Armed Forces, the DRDO has frequently acted as a barrier in defence acquisitions in the name of indigenization and developing the very product that was being imported.