I worked with DRDO as scientist for decent time. The schedule of the scientists, technical staff and officers goes like this... They will reach the lab by 9 or 9:30....they will wait for the break fast and lunch to come till 10:30... after taking one hr Tea break... They start planning...it will become 12...They will work for an half an hr or so.. Then comes lunch break for 2 hrs. No body...will even touch the equipment till 2:30.. again finish off the work in an hr. Again 3:30 is Tea time..... and after tht senior scientist.. goes to attend meetings and conferences. Junior scientists do some surfing in Libraries. Technical staff plays football... all sorts of activites from 3:30 to 5. Thats it. Where is the time for the poor people to work and show the results. Its the worst culture I have ever seen. People won't take responsibilites. I can't finish off my work without the help of certain deptartments. They certainly won't help you untill.... you visit them for every hour or so.
I graduated from IITKanpur... and I certainly had hard time working there. I knew that I had work which is pending... but I can't finish it.. or people won't allow me to finish. But certainly there will be project meetings.. where everytime your goal is the same.
RE:Schedule of scientists
by Yashwant Gowda on Jan 16, 2008 01:48 PM Permalink
The schedule of a BARC scientists is similar to that you mentioned. Situation of R&D appears to be same.
These organizations train the officers for a year. The course of training is same as that of M.Sc. The advantage in such organization is that you can do your higher studied like Ph.D. and Post Doc. The first 10 years after recruitment goes in such higher studies.
Once you are an employee of such organization then he/she will never to thrown out. Thats for sure. Whether the project is completed or not the empolyee will complete his/her 60 year in the organization. This is not the situation with private organization.
The situation is know to all. But what we need is the solution.
RE:Schedule of scientists
by commander hans on Jan 18, 2008 09:12 PM Permalink
quite simple run it like a business....chop of the slagger or non performer...make it a sort after place to work for....not something to dread workign for....
RE:Schedule of scientists
by jay b on Jan 16, 2008 01:57 AM Permalink
very entertaining and factful response. looks like your position was not high enough to get commission for all those n billion $ contracts
RE:Schedule of scientists
by Fun Lover on Jan 16, 2008 02:13 AM Permalink
It is not entertaining dear. It is frustrating. Especially if you want to contribute something but see that the system is completely screwed up.
RE:Schedule of scientists
by on Jan 16, 2008 02:37 AM Permalink
This is a fact and the consequence is in large sense coming back to the society....as in Kargil casualties. I must say defence is a primary aspect of a country's existence.....please dont mess it up with other Central organizations. The present work culture as prevalent in almost all Government organizations must be extricated in DRDO atleast other wise get ready to face the consequences.
RE:Schedule of scientists
by Sameer Bhagwat on Jan 16, 2008 02:23 AM Permalink
This is the same culture prevalent in US companies like microsoft and intel. The only difference is that people pretend to work. How then does work get done, quite simple instead of spending Rs 2000 crores in 25 years, they spend Rs 20000 crores every year i.e. 250 times the R&D budget of DRDO and their only output is a software product or a microchip. So the moral of the story is that culture of an organization hardly matters as long as enough money is poured into it.
RE:Schedule of scientists
by Fun Lover on Jan 16, 2008 02:31 AM Permalink
That is incorrect. I don't know about Microsoft or Intel, but I looked at the work culture in some of the private companies, both in India as well as in USA. And it tends to be much better than what is mentioned for DRDO. Please don't let your misguided sense of patriotism come in the way of objective analysis.
RE:Schedule of scientists
by Deep Indian on Jan 16, 2008 03:54 AM Permalink
That is the most stupid assessment I have ever come across to run an organization.Microsoft cuts cost like hell and Intel sucks in the best brains to do its job. You must be one of those prototypes working for DRDO...
RE:Schedule of scientists
by Sameer Bhagwat on Jan 16, 2008 05:38 AM Permalink
Guys, look at the R&D budgets and outputs of Microsoft, intel or any large US companies for that matter. They spend several tens of billions but their output has been just 1 chip or new version of windows in 5 years. Agreed that culture wise they pretend to work all the time. What difference does it make?? All that matter are results and return on investment. Therefore DRDO is much better than intel or microsoft
RE:Schedule of scientists
by Fun Lover on Jan 16, 2008 01:50 AM Permalink
I graduated from IIT Madras. Initially, I had high hopes of joining DRDO and contributing to India's defence research. But later, some of my friends who worked at DRDO told me about the pathetic work culture over there. What they said is essentially the same as what you have written above. I lost all interest in joining DRDO after that. No wonder, India's defence is lagging behind.
RE:Schedule of scientists
by Sakshi Sharma on Jan 16, 2008 02:21 AM Permalink
Yup. I interned at DRDO for 2 months during my stay at IITD, and found a similar routine of scientists and other staff.The department for which I worked, was engaged in a project they said was over the deadline by 5 years!!!And the project was not even 5% of the size of a missile program.I think it's time to put direct accountability for such delays and failures.
RE:Schedule of scientists
by Deep Indian on Jan 16, 2008 01:46 AM Permalink
So that explains it all! Maybe the author was right. Its about time to size up our jewel in the crown or so they wanted us to believe. If tax payers don't go up in arms I fail to believe who will?
RE:Schedule of scientists
by neer kohli on Jan 16, 2008 04:41 AM Permalink
fully agree with article. I think main issue more to do with project management and administration. Most of the middle or senior level scientists do not have any project management training or they are not using any of them in the project. There is no teamwork spirit in youngsters and working against each other. There are nobody to guide them to give proper directions or training. Look at the number of reaserch papers published in the Indian defence journals, it is very few. There are no technical or research conferences.
Same Engineers when they go out of DRDO, they are publishing papers, producing world class products!. Is it because of the salary or perks ? Not at all. Look at the Indian Universities, there are no reaserch going on. Just taking fresh graduates and asking them to produce without training and direction. It is another corrupted system in the list.
RE:Schedule of scientists
by Srini k on Jan 16, 2008 03:36 AM Permalink
Same is the Case in BARC, worser , people while away their time in attending their personal duties and gossiping useless things, people always try to motivate who do really wants to do some good research. After putting 10=15 years of service they will be promoted to Scientist F level, Lot of POWER DISTANCE is seen in these Labs, so where is the scope for development
RE:India has to reinvent the wheel
by wtf on Jan 16, 2008 02:08 AM Permalink
why don't u go and steal the wheel. May be you can find some brown wheels.
RE:India has to reinvent the wheel
by Deep Indian on Jan 16, 2008 03:57 AM Permalink
Yeah! But who is looking into whether the wheel is spinning or not? We are now talking about accountability. It does not matter if you are really serious about getting the job done regardless of the number of years. BUt the contention is that the people on the job need to be serious and goal oriented and not sit there as people waiting at the airport for transit purposes.
A memo to DRDO "Don't re-invent the wheel". If technology is available to expidite the development process then BUY, PARTNER, CO-OPT, LICENCE the technology, but please DO NOT TRY to re-invent the technology.
This is an excellent article. Even though it is harsh it brings out the issue with DRDO as in every other public sector industry in india. All these guys at the top are being racist, egoistic and communalistic. They are more interested in building their own zones of influence and not concentrate on actual research.
Because of this stupidity india has lost lots of talented minds to overseas research institutions. Even today every one talks about accountability but I have not seen anything in action. It would be great if the Author writes a second part and suggest some changes.
RE:Harsh but Honest
by commander hans on Jan 18, 2008 09:15 PM Permalink
All the PSU's are in RED..they havent delivered anything...they have so much of spare production capacity it can put an huge org to shame... and moreover the psu's are run by dinosaurs...
I think answer lies midway. There would be some efficient groups in DRDO and many ineffecient. They way to deal with these is to identify efficient resources and privatize inefficent.
Though all that said, some amount of wastage will have to be tolerated in the name of self dependence. Although wastage is not same as inefficiency. We could try build some technology and then fail. That's wastage. Sipping tea and pampering egos is inefficiency.
Also the rooters of privatisation please note, research is not higly efficient activity. Even with Dupont, they introduced 6 sigma and then realized it killed innovation and then they rolled back 6 sigma in R&D.
Sometimes sipping tea gives bright ideas. Indians do get a lot of bright ideas often times. I am always curious to know where it comes from- at loo, while talking, while cursing someone.... like I get my best ideas when taking bath cheers..
RE:Missile Accuracy
by Lal Popat on Jan 16, 2008 01:17 AM Permalink
All nuclear missiles use inertial guidance systems which cannot be tampered with unlike GPS (easy to jam)
The author however does hit the nail. DRDO wastes precious $$$ to create weapons which look good on paper but have rarely been put to use.
Pakistan on the other hand does the intelligent thing and gets proven/tested weapons from China. I would guess that even there nuke are much better than India's as they have been tested often (by China).
It is time for India to hand over the development/manufacture of nuclear weapons/missiles to pvt co.s like Tata which can cut through the politics, hire the best talent and produce results.
Looks like the author didn't get enough commission('beta') from those DRDO contracts....and hez trying to tell his agony for that... lol!!!! God bless India
