Dial DRDO for delay

While the postponement of Agni-III missile?s test-firing may have to do with political expediency, it doesn?t justify the claims of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) that it had the missile ready for launch ?since January?.

While the postponement of Agni-III missile’s test-firing may have to do with political expediency, it doesn’t justify the claims of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) that it had the missile ready for launch ‘since January’. Agni-III has been developed as a surface-based, solid and liquid propellant ballistic missile, the third in line of the family with a 3,000-km range, which is more than three times that of Agni-I, and double that of Agni-II. But the missile has had an inordinately long gestation period in keeping perhaps with the DRDO’s culture of delay and disappointment.

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Today, almost everything that matters in the Indian military — fighters, tanks, submarines, EW systems and UAVs is imported — from Russia, France, Britain, Israel or Germany. Even the key solid propellant motors of the Agni-I and II were developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation. This obviously has little to do with any lack of infrastructure or funds, considering the DRDO has an annual budget of over Rs 4,000 crore and scores of hi-tech laboratories scattered across the country. The Trishul, Akash and Nag, the Arjun tank, Nishant UAV, have taken so long to develop that they are now obsolete. Even without delivering the promise of the past decades, the DRDO is now promising the moon in robotics, and other allegedly futuristic systems.