Rs 10321.84 crore spent on defence R and D in past 3 years

New Delhi, Apr 28 (UNI) The Department of Defence Research and Development has spent Rs 10321.84 crore during the past three years on research and development work in the defence sector, the Government said today.

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) had developed a number of products and technologies during the past three years, Defence Minister A K Antony said in a written reply to Kiran Maheshwari in the Lok Sabha.

These include missiles, unmanned aerial vehicle, electronic warfare systems, avionics upgrades, radars and sonars, combat vehicles, gyroscope, imaging infrared seeker, sensors, NBC decontamination suites, parachutes, propellants and explosives, detonators, composite materials, powder metallurgy, fuel cells, paints, data processing, antennas, artificial intelligence, encryptions, communication systems, signal processing, guidance and control systems.

DRDO with these efforts and achievements had equipped services with the state-of-the-art technologies in different areas.

Services, industry and academia were being synergetically involved in the design and development activities right from the beginning to a great extent, Mr Antony said.

X X X The Government has recently reviewed Advanced Light Helicopter WSI, Light Combat Helicopter and Intermediate Jet Trainer (IJT) projects. There are no cost overruns in respect of these Projects.

There is a delay of about a year in Design and Development of the Engine of IJT programme which is under close monitoring.

In respect of Design and Development programmes of HAL such as ALH, ALH-WSI, IJT and LCH, these are result oriented and time bound.

This information was given by Minister of State for Defence Production Rao Inderjit Singh in a written reply to Prabhunath Singh in the Lok Sabha.

X X X Mr Antony said three soldiers were killed and two critically wounded while firing 120 mm mortar bombs during the exercise at Pokhran firing range on March 19, 2008.

The accident was caused due to bore premature while the shell exploded within the barrel of 120 mm mortar resulting in bursting of barrel into pieces.

All such instances were investigated through a Court of Inquiry to ascertain the cause and reasons leading to the accident.

As an immediate action to prevent such recurrence, the suspect 'lot' of ammunition used during firing has been segregated and banned from firing.

Mr Antony said this in a written reply to Maneka Gandhi and Kinjarapu Yerrannaidu in the Lok Sabha.

UNI AG MIR AS2014