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New Delhi: India's premier military research body, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), loses one scientist every second day to a plum post in the private sector.
Figures from the defence ministry tell the sordid tale of the DRDO, which celebrates its golden jubilee this year.
According to the ministry, a total of 1,107 scientists, mostly young entrants, have resigned from the DRDO between 2003 and 2007, implying that on an average one person leaves every two days.
"These scientists work in the DRDO for two to three years, gain the experience of working on important projects, then leave for private research and development companies where they get fat salary cheques," said a DRDO official.
"We have a strength of 7,000 scientists at the moment, and the attrition rate is about 6.3 per cent. And what is worsening the situation is that we are not able to attract enough candidates to fill up the vacancies," the official said.
The private sector, which does not invest in research, has been lapping up the young scientists, who get comparatively lesser packages in the DRDO.
"At entry level a scientist gets a basic salary of Rs8,000, which comes to a take home package of around Rs20,000 per month. On the other hand, these scientists can easily get paid in millions in the private sector," the official said.
In great demand
The scientists in DRDO are in great demand in the private sector as they get to work in various areas like aeronautics, armaments, combat vehicles, electronics, instrumentation engineering systems, missiles, materials, naval systems, advance computing, simulation and life sciences. DRDO had sent a comprehensive proposal to the Sixth Pay Commission on incentives for scientists, including reimbursement of telephone and internet expenses, entitling all scientists to air travel on official duty.
But the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission have not gone down well with DRDO scientists.
"The pay panel has recommended a three-fold hike for the scientists at the entry level. But there is a hitch. Currently the basic salary of the scientist is Rs8,000 plus other allowances. After the panel's recommendations are implemented, they will get Rs24,000 minus all allowances," the official said.
"The hike actually comes to only 20 per cent," he said.
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