‘The committee stated that two-third of the projects being executed by the DRDO were delayed’.
NEW DELHI: The Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) has come under fire from the Parliamentary Committee on Defence for the delay that the organization does while executing sensitive projects. As per the 38th report of the committee that was presented to the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, the committee stated that two-third of the projects being executed by the DRDO were delayed.
“During the course of evidence, an issue was raised by the Committee regarding delay in mission mode projects of DRDO. The Committee learnt from the CAG report which was tabled in the Parliament on 21 December 2022 wherein it was stated that they looked at some 178 projects. Out of these 178 projects, in 119, which is two-third, the original time schedules are not adhered to. In 49 cases, the additional time was in fact more than 100% of the original time frame and overall, the delay ranged between 16% to 500%,” the committee, that is composed of 10 Rajya Sabha members and 20 Lok Sabha members and headed by RS MP Brij Lal, stated in its report.
According to it, DRDO, which functions under the Defence Ministry, has been “closing projects” while declaring them as successful despite non-achievement of the projects.
“They have said that there have been time and cost overruns in completion of projects, there have been closure of projects declaring them successful despite non-achievement of one or more key objectives and parameters and taking up of new projects for realizing the unachieved objectives of the earlier closed projected declared as successful,” the committee members said.
Similarly, in its 34th report that was also tabled on Tuesday, the Parliamentary Committee noted how DRDO had indulged in wasteful expenditure regarding the development of missiles from India’s main battle tank, Arjun MK-2. It also remarked that due to lack of planning, a lot of money, time and manpower was wasted.
“The Committee found that a missile trial held in 2013, from MBT Arjun Mk II did not meet the acceptance criteria in the short-range due to certain issues linked to missiles. Therefore, in 2018 the missile firing delinked from the MBT Arjun Mk II. The Committee is not happy to note the fact that in spite of spending substantial amounts on the development of the missile that eventually became untenable for MBT Arjun Mk II,” the report states.
“The Committee also noted that after nearly five years the missile was abandoned which could have been done even earlier. The Committee felt that before the start of a project, a lot of groundwork and planning should have been carried out to ensure that precious money, time and manpower is not wasted. It is equally important that the project should invariably be accomplished within the stipulated time frame, which it seems was not done in this instant case. The Committee recommend that some robust planning, execution and monitoring mechanism need to be developed and meticulously followed by DRDO to prevent any such cases of wasteful expenditure of allocated funds which otherwise could have been gainfully utilized to meet the compelling requirements in other wings of Defence Establishment,” the committee members said in their findings.