We Have Given Nearly 300 Transfer Of Technologies In The Last Three Years

We Have Given Nearly 300 Transfer Of Technologies In The Last Three Years

- R. Prasannan & Pradip R. Sagar

Hailed as the father of India’s Airborne Early Warning & Control System (AEW&CS) programme—a flying radar system designed to detect aircraft—S. Christopher has been leading the DRDO from the front, for the last three years.

He took bold decisions that led to fructification of several delayed and nearly-abandoned development programmes. As he is hanging up his boots at the end of this month, Christopher spoke to THE WEEK. Edited excerpts:

DRDO had earned bouquets for its missile achievements, but brickbats for other programmes. How did you change it, despite being a non-missile man?

I am from a non-missile background, but, missile is my breadwinner. Our missile programme is indigenous. But, even there, I found that we were going abroad for just one thing called the seeker... [and] falling into the trap of joint programmes.

What is a seeker? It is a radar. It just transmits, receives and identifies [the target]. Except for guidance, a radar does all that a seeker does. So this programme should have been given long ago to LRDE [Electronics and Radar Development Establishment].... Maybe, LRDE thought it was too small a programme for them, and why should they ride piggyback on the missile programme. The missile people might not have shown interest because their core areas are propulsion and navigation, and this was secondary.

I decided to push this little thing. The problem was in testing. It had to be tested on a missile. Who would spare a missile, which costs 030 crore or more, to test a seeker? Finally, I told the users [the armed forces], ‘When you go for a weapon test of a missile, please put my seeker in it.’ Thus, we did it. Now, we have companies that can produce these seekers.

The missile programme had been a success story with the Agnis and Prithvis. But, the tail-end programmes had been languishing.