Underlining that the ongoing conflict in the international arena has revealed the “hazards of a hybrid warfare”, a parliamentary panel has recommend that the DRDO should expand its R&D efforts to enhance combat readiness against any non-conventional warfare and security threats.
In its report tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, the committee has noted “with concern that out of 55 projects, 23 were not completed within the stipulated time”. “Although, 571 projects worth Rs 34161.58 cr have been successfully completed and closed during the last 10 years (1 Jan 2012 — till date), with respect to projects which were partially successful or unsuccessful, eight such projects worth Rs 770.31 cr were stage closed during this period,” the report said.
The report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence is titled — ‘Action Taken by the Government on the Observations/ Recommendations contained in the Forty-Second Report (17th Lok Sabha) of the Standing Committee on Defence on the subject — A Review of the Working of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)’.
The committee in its report recalled that in its 42nd report (17th Lok Sabha), it was of the opinion that the DRDO should establish their research laboratories in premier institutes of technologies such as the IITs and IISc, Bengaluru so that students having interest in defence and military technology can be motivated to undertake further research in the area.
In this regard, the defence ministry has submitted that in response to the recommendation of the committee, the DRDO has instituted various DRDO Industry Academia-Centre of Excellence (DIA-COE) in various IITs, IISC and central universities across the country for research engagement with academia and industries, it said.
The committee said it expresses its “satisfaction at the extant mechanism” in DRDO for research engagement with academia and industries.
It further said that the panel in its “original report had also urged the DRDO to focus more on new and emerging areas of technology applications such as artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics” for furthering their research-base and also exploring the possibility of AI’s application in various systems and sub-systems developed by them.
“Further, the committee feel that the ongoing conflict in the international arena has revealed, to a great extent, the hazards of a hybrid warfare, with both kinetic and non-kinetic operations. Keeping in view such drastic transformation in the warfare technology, the Committee feel that there is a need for fervid focus on research and development in the field of hybrid warfare, especially kinetic and non-kinetic warfare,” the report said.
“Therefore, the committee recommend that the DRDO, in collaboration with academia and industries, should further broad-base their R&D efforts to include areas such as hybrid, kinetic and non-kinetic warfare as well as anti-drone capabilities including sea drones and interceptive drones by according highest priorities in order to enhance our combat readiness against any non conventional warfare and security threats,” it added.
Under the ‘Recommendation (Para No. 7)’, the panel shared its earlier recommendation and the reply of the ministry.
The ministry in its action taken reply has stated as under — “DRDO plan to expand its research activities in the areas of quantum technologies, artificial intelligence, cognitive technologies, smart materials, asymmetric technologies, terahertz, directed energy systems, high power electromagnets, etc.” The committee said it has been given to understand that the armed forces personnel “face certain difficulties” in the remote and far-flung border areas owing to their dependence on conventional sources of energy only.
“The Committee feel that DRDO, being one of the most advanced research organisation, should explore avenues for tapping new and renewable sources of energy such as solar and wind in those far-flung areas to ensure energy security for the armed forces personnel deployed in the remotest border areas for meeting their obvious daily needs. The Committee would like to be informed of the measures undertaken in this regard,” the report added.
