India scaling up indigenous missile development programme

India is scaling up its indigenous missile development programme with a target of stopping import of technology for tactical missiles in the next six to eight years.

“We will be coming out with about five types of indigenously developed missiles in the next five years, including surface-to-air and a cruise missile,” Avinash Chander, Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister, said.

The cycle time for development a missile, which was eight to ten years in the past, has now been brought down to four to five years, he told media persons on the sidelines of the two-day International Conference on Advanced Avionics here today.

While the work is on track to come out with an anti-radiation missile in three years, the country would have an indigenous man-held anti-tank missile in four years.

The Government is also working on a programme to take a slew of technologies developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation to the common man through public-private partnership programme.

The DRDO has identified some technologies, such as bio-digester toilets, innovative food packaging to prolong the life of the contents and a tele-medicine platform, that can be made use in the civil sector, Chander said