India will adopt threepronged strategy to check China influence

NEW DELHI: 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 ₹150 crore.

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 dayto-day technologies.