Approx Rs. 1, 36,420 Cr had been spent by the Department of Defence Research and Development since the inception of DRDO uptil now.

The total number of personnel, including scientists, military men and others employed in the DRDO at present are given as below:

            Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has been set up with the mandate of developing cutting edge technologies and systems for the Indian Armed Forces through R&D in all technology domains. DRDO labs have developed large number of weapon systems, platforms and defence equipment which are already in use/ready for induction by the Defence Services.

    DRDO is only involved in the prototype development and subsequent production is through traditional production partner’s viz. Ordnance Factory Boards (OFBs) and Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs).  A number of Indian private sector firms have also been involved in our development programmes.

    A Committee headed by Dr. P. Rama Rao was constituted by the Government for reviewing the functioning of DRDO.

·        Till date, DRDO has implemented the following recommendations of the Committee:

·        Nomination of Nodal Officers for structured interaction between DRDO and Services.

·        Introduction of Integrated Financial Advice (IFA) Scheme for financial decentralization.

·        Appointment of a dedicated Chief Controller for Human Resources (HR).

·        Creation of Seven Technology Domain based Clusters headed by Director’s General, Restructuring of DRDO HQrs, Creation of Directorate of Systems Analysis and Modelling (SAM) and Directorate of Quality, Reliability and Safety (QR&S).

·        Efforts have also been made to increase budget for Extramural Research as recommended by the Committee.

          This information was given by Defence Minister Shri Manohar Parrikar in a written reply to Shri Senguttuvan B in Lok Sabha today.

NAMPI/HH/RAJ