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With an eye on reducing the Indian military's dependence on imports, the Central government has set up a five member panel to prepare the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for "futuristic defence" and battlefield scenarios.

The DRDO, which was set up in 1958, is currently headed by Dr G. Satheesh Reddy. He was to retire by the end of the month, however the government gave him an extension of two years on Monday.

Reddy is also the secretary of the department of defence research and development in the Ministry of Defence and he has set up a five member committee to study and review the charter of duties of the organisation.

The panel is headed by IIT Delhi Director V. Ramagopal Rao and has been given a deadline of 45 days to submit a detailed report.

The other members are S. Somnath, Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Dr Samir V. Kamat, Director General-Naval Systems and Materials (NS & M), Air Marshal Sandeep Singh, Deputy Chief of Air Staff and Benjamin Lionel, Director, Instruments Research and Development Establishment of DRDO.

The members will also study and review the charter of duties of the entire organisation. The panel will also redefine the charter of duties of all 52 laboratories of DRDO on the current and futuristic defence and battlefield scenarios. The committee will also carry out a study to minimise the overlap of technologies amongst the laboratories.

Responding to the clarion call of Aatmanirbhar Bharat, the DRDO on Monday said that 108 systems and subsystems would from now on be developed in India thus strengthening the indigenous defence ecosystem.

A delegation of DRDO also met Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to apprise him about 108 systems and subsystems which have been identified for designing and development by the Indian Industry.

This initiative will pave the way for the Indian Defence industry to develop many technologies towards building an Aatmanirbhar Bharat.

The DRDO would provide support to industries for design, development and testing of these systems on requirement basis. All the requirements of these systems by Research and Development establishments, armed forces, and other security agencies can be met through development contracts or production orders on suitable Indian industry.

This will allow DRDO to focus on design and development of critical and advanced technologies and systems along with weapons, automated drones like the ones bought from Israel and efforts are being made for various rovers, robots for the on-ground forces.

This news has been published via Syndicate feed. Only the headline is changed.