Make in India or spring cleaning? Decoding Avinash Chander's removal as DRDO chief

The surprise termination of Avinash Chander as the head of the Defence Research and Development Organisation is being blamed on multiple factors like his inability to toe the line on the ‘Make in India’ campaign but another major factor may have been the government’s desire to revamp the organisation and put younger faces in charge of an organisation that is accused of holding on to scientists well beyond its requirement.

Chander, an alumunus of IIT-Delhi where he did his graduation in Electrical Engineering, and JNTU where he did his MS in Spatial Information Technology, is credited as being the person who led the design and development of the Agni series of ballistic missiles.

Having joined the DRDO in 1972 after his graduation, the organisation credits him with having “created the infrastructure, industry base, production lines, and integration facilities to produce different classes of Agni missiles”. The DRDO credited his research in inertial navigation and guidance systems “for enabling the utilisation of solid propulsion”, which is said to be the backbone of the long-range missile system, and also with laying the technology roadmap for Missile Complex Laboratories.

After his appointment, Chander had said that his first priority was to ensure that India could react quickly to a nuclear strike in minutes, and had promised the latest versions of the Agni missile, with a range of over 6,000 kilometres would be inducted in the armed forces’ arsenal by 2015.

While a Telegraph report today hinted that Chander may have been shown the door on account of the DRDO’s failure to fall in line with the Prime Minister’s ‘Make in India’ campaign to boost manufacturing in the country, the scientist in the past had said that he supported the participation of private industry in defence equipment manufacturing and believed allowing greater FDI would bring in better technologies.

 In an interview to the Indian Express  in 2014, Chander had said,“Our aim is that as Make in India enhances further, funding should come from private industry for research and development. So we will look at partnerships.”

The former DRDO chief may have run afoul of the government on account of the accusation that the country’s top defence equipment research organisation was stymieing talent due to a rigid hierarchy that allowed some scientists to keep getting extensions.

Chander was the Chief Controller of Missiles and Strategic Systems, and given an extension at age 62, when he was appointed as the Director General of the DRDO,

Scientific Adviser to Defence Minister and Secretary Department of Defence R&D.

He was given another extension in November 2014, despite speculation that it would be rejected. Chander’s extension had in the past been the subject of a protest by younger scientists and as this India Today analysis found out, an internal survey in the DRDO had found that most mid-level scientists were taking premature retirement as they were unsatisified with their working conditions.

In an interview to Ibnlive , Chander had admitted that the shortage of manpower was a “serious area of concern” since there were very few scientists per programme and they needed at least 300-350 people inducted every year.

“Today we are inducting hardly seventy people to offset retirements. So we have put up a case to government for enhancement of manpower and are looking to induct some 2700 scientists in phases over the next decade, so that our base can become strong,” he had said.

Chander  had also defended the extensions granted to 18 other scientists and him, saying it did not alter the profile of the organisation.

However, the pressure on the top brass of the organisation had been mounting which started with Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying that it needed to meet its deadlines on projects and urging it to make provisions to have five of the 52 labs headed by people younger than 35 years who also needed to be given decision making powers.

While Chander said that they had set up seven such labs and begun working with different universities, the Modi government began to turn the screws on the organisation by first scrapping the Departmental Peer Review Committee (DPRCs) which was seen as merely granting extensions to scientists post retirement, and then telling the DRDO to stop unilaterally granting extensions.

While there is no immediate trigger evident for the sudden termination of the DRDO chief’s contract, it is perhaps the most strong step taken by the government so far to show they meant business when it came to revamping the organisation.

While Chander may plead innocence  about why he was abruptly shown the door, the Modi government had been showing signs of ushering broad changes for some time now and what remains to be seen is how it plans to revive the organisation and who it puts in charge of it.