Manohar Parrikar, the first IIT-ian to become a Chief Minister and the country’s Defence Minister, had a turbulent time in the South Block in New Delhi.

His tenure of two and half years in the Narendra Modi government was action packed. It was marked by the first surgical strike on terrorists camps in Pakistan occupied Kashmir, the sacking of his Scientific Adviser and senior IIT-ian, Avinash Chander, several key policy initiatives including hiking FDI in the defence manufacturing, promoting indigenous industry and putting accountability on pending projects.

Even after Parrikar returned to Goa to become the CM for the third time in March 2017, defence matters haunted him when Rahul Gandhi created a flutter by stating that he was bypassed by the PMO in the controversial decision to buy the Rafale fighter jet and that he knew critical information regarding the deal.

Good intentions

The 63-year-old Parrikar, who assumed the office of the defence ministry in November 2014, had several good intentions. He set about promoting indigenous technology in the sector and formulated a policy to boost domestic industry, especially the small and medium enterprises in innovation and materials.

But soon, he made the tough decision of increasing FDI in the defence sector to 74 per cent from 49 per cent. Similarly, he presided over another decision of raising the offset clause eligibility to ₹2000 crore from the existing ₹1000 crore, both of which did not go well with the domestic industry.

The ‘Make In India’ push in the defence sector also was not making much headway.

Key initiative

In addition to the emphasis on the domestic industries development, Parrikar focussed on accelerating the missiles development and induction. However, his first brush was not a pleasant one as he terminated the contract of Avinash Chander (who was on extension post superannuation) in January 2015, who was the then Scientific Adviser, Director-General, Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO).

Avinash Chander, a key leader of the ‘Agni’ missile programme, was a senior IIT-ian from Delhi to Parrikar, who was an IIT Mumbai alumnus. It was not a popular decision as the missiles programme was doing well and the reported justification he gave was that younger leadership was needed.

The reason being the successor he picked was S Christopher, who himself had just a year to superannuate. Further, he split the post and got G Satheesh Reddy, a younger scientist as his Scientific Adviser.

Parrikar boosted the Missile Complex in Hyderabad by inaugurating two advanced R&D facilities at the RCI Outdoor RCS Test Facility called ORANGE at Dundigal and KAUTILYA Advanced Research Centre. He also renamed the Missile Complex as the Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Missile Complex on October 15, 2015 to mark the 84th birth anniversary of Kalam, who had passed away in 2014.

Parrikar believed that there was a lot of knowledge and infrastructure base with the DRDO and felt that they needed to be tapped by MSME and private industries, which would lead to ultimately lead to the establishment of a self reliant defence industrial ecosystem in the country.

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