Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to tie-up with IITs: Manohar Parrikar

Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today said the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) can have a tie-up with the IITs. “We have signed an agreement with DRDO for jet propulsion lab which is to be jointly set up with IIT Mumbai and Madras, the total cost of which is about Rs 160 crore,” Parrikar said after inaugurating the IIT Goa campus in presence of Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar. Some 8,000 scientists of DRDO can be a big resource for the educational institutes, Parrikar said, adding, “We can teach. We can select a few scientists who have done top-end research (for teaching).”

On the quality of research at DRDO, the Defence Minister, himself an IIT graduate, said in the next one or two years the country would not need to import any part of its missile technology, adding, “We will be in the position to manufacture it here.”

We can have tie-ups with IITs, including Goa IIT, after a couple of years, to develop something, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said, adding, DRDO laboratories can be used for summer vacation training of IIT students.

“We can tie-up with DRDO to get visiting faculty in various subjects which can give proper adoptable technological edge in education,” he added.