Parliament body seeks more funds for DRDO

NEW DELHI: Unhappy with insufficient budget for defence R&D, the parliamentary standing committee on defence has recommended that in the current fiscal 2023-24 more funds must be granted to DRDO during the mid-year review in Revised Estimates.

The committee undertook a review of the funds allocated to the department of defence, R&D, during the last five years.

"In respect of the budgetary grants, the committee found a drop in DRDO expenditure as a percentage of total GDP over the past few years. From the data provided by the ministry of defence, the committee found that the percentage share of the defence R&D budget to total GDP has come down to 0.078 per cent in 2021-22 from 0.088 per cent in 2017-18," it said.

It said that the mandate for DRDO is to develop cutting-edge technologies and eventually through the transfer of such technologies to equip our services with internationally competitive systems and platforms.

"When the allocations are consistently going down, it would be difficult for DRDO to attain developmental goals, and to attain an edge over adversaries. The committee opined that budget grants of DRDO should be suitably enhanced for the growth of defence technologies," it said.

The panel said that it was informed that in the current year, DRDO projected Rs 23,263.89 crore at the Budget Estimate stage, which is 5.1 per cent of the defence budget.

"As per the ministry, the exclusive research and development budget is Rs 5,000 crore only, out of this 25 per cent that is  around Rs 1,300 crore is earmarked for the private sector. Hence it can be very well understood that the amount actually left for DRDO projects is under constraints," it said.

The panel said that R&D is a prerequisite for a robust modern defence mechanism and the government has to take care of funds for in-house projects of DRDO along with outsourcing defence R&D. "The committee, therefore recommend that during 2023-24 adequate funds should be channelized to DRDO at subsequent stage i.e. RE for its ongoing and future projects," it said.

The committee also observed that data reveals that there has always been a decrease in the Budget estimate proposed and Budget estimate approved or allocated for defence R&D. "In the year 2021-22, the projected amount was Rs 23,460 and allocated amount was Rs 20,457 crore which was Rs 3,002 less than the projection. Likewise, in the year 2022-23, the projected amount was Rs 22,990 crore and the allocated amount stood at Rs 21,330 crore which was Rs 1659 crore less than the projection," it said.

However, the committee noted that during the financial year 2023-24, the projected amount was Rs 23,790 crore and the allocated amount is Rs 23,263.89 crore.

"The committee noted that for the first time, the difference is marginal and stands at Rs 526 crore," it said. The panel recommended that the defence ministry should undertake all out efforts in future and ensure that no cut is made in the budget while allocating the amount.