Modi govt revamps DRDO: Key body reconstituted, to set agenda

The reconstituted DSTMC is a high-profile body that will chart the future of DRDO laboratories in synergy with the science and technology department.

Published on: Jul 8, 2018, 07:19:56 IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Shishir Gupta

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The Narendra Modi government has taken its first steps towards restructuring and revamping the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) by reviving the defunct DRDO Science and Technology Management Council (DSTMC) under the chairmanship of principal scientific advisor K Vijayraghavan and doubling the financial powers of the secretary, DRDO, to Rs 150 crore.

DRDO’s powers have been enhanced by the government for sanctioning projects and competitive procurement to Rs 150 crore from the existing Rs 75 crore. (Himanshu Vyas/HT File Photo)

According to a July 3 notification accessed by Hindustan Times, the reconstituted DSTMC is a high-profile body that will chart the future of DRDO laboratories in synergy with the science and technology department.

The other members of DSTMC are secretary, DRDO; chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO); chairman, Atomic Energy Commission; and secretaries of the department of science and technology, and department of earth sciences.

Instead of retired officers as in the past, chairmen of defence public sector undertakings like Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, Bharat Electronics Ltd, BEML Ltd and Mishra Dhatu Nigam Ltd are members, along with the directors of Indian Institutes of Technologies at Delhi, Kharagpur, Madras and Bombay.

This high-power Council will do a review of the functioning of all 42 laboratories of the DRDO and existing science and technology laboratories so that there is no overlap of work and synergy between the defence, space, atomic energy and educational institutions involved in high-end research. The Council will also decide on research and development priorities in the defence sector. This means it will be this council that will set the agenda for the DRDO to engage in top end technologies or functional day-to-day technologies.

The Council’s recommendations will be sent to the defence ministry.

The Council will also look into personnel management of 7,500 scientists in the DRDO laboratories and explore the idea of lateral induction of talent for a limited period from IITs and other Indian institutions. The total strength of DRDO is 30,000 personnel with even secretary, DRDO, having limited financial powers. This has now changed.

According to another notification, the powers of the secretary, DRDO have been enhanced for sanctioning projects and competitive procurement to Rs 150 crore from the existing Rs 75 crore. The financial powers of director general (DRDO) have been enhanced from Rs 25 crore to Rs 75 crore. Financial powers of directors of laboratories have been enhanced from Rs 2 crore to Rs 5 crore. In single tender cases, the powers of secretary, DRDO, have been enhanced to ?75 crore, DG (DRDO) to Rs 37.5 crore and lab directors to Rs 2.5 crore. The powers of DG for sanctioning research and development projects at universities and the indigenous defence industry have been enhanced to Rs 5 crore. The powers in case of post contract management and maintenance support have been delegated to DG (DRDO) on par with the armed forces.

“The setting up of the Council and the empowerment of DRDO secretary are all designed to boost indigenization and promote domestic industry to build high-end platforms in order to reduce global reliance for military hardware,” said a senior defence ministry official.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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