PUNE To start courses in the defence sector is very important for our country, as the defence industry and technology are taking a quantum leap. For the first time in the country indigenous technologies and manufacturing in the country in defence has picked up in a big way. We are seeing that a lot of exports have started from our country. Academia is playing a major role in this development and there are around 300 academic institutes or universities which are working on DRDO projects, developing various new technologies,” said Dr G Satheesh Reddy, secretary, Department of Defence, R&D and chairman Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Ministry of Defence, Government of India. He was talking at the MoU signing held at Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) onFriday, between SPPU’s department of Defence & Strategic Studies and the Institute of Defence Scientists and Technologists, Delhi, to start PG Diploma in ‘Defence Technology’.
On this occassion along with Dr Reddy, Pravin K Mehta, distinguished scientist and DG ACE, Shri Ramnarayana, vice-chancellor DIAT, (Defence Institute of Advanced Technology), Dr V Venkateswara Rao, scientist and director, Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE), P M Kurulkar, scientist and director R&D (Engineers), KPS Murthy, scientist and director, High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL), Dr CL Dhamejani, president, Institute of Defence Scientists and Technologists (IDST), Pune branch, and SPPU pro-vice chancellor Dr N S Umrani were present.
“We are now working on futuristic technologies, which will be used after ten years and are trying to develop them in close coordination with academic institutes. The total budget of the projects working with the academic institutes is now ₹1,100 crore and so lots of schemes are coming up to support the academic institutes. So naturally it requires lot of skilled manpower and study groups across the country, so we want to analyse what to focus on. More than 2,000 industries are currently working with us in tier 1 and tier 2 industries. While over 10,000 industries are working in tier 3 cities on the component level. Thousands of startups have come up to work in this field connected to defence security,” he added.