New Delhi, Feb. 21: The President asks “agree” or “disagree”? Again and again, after each point. All he gets is an incomprehensible mumble or a loud murmur.

That was A.P.J. Abdul Kalam this evening among military scientists of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the outfit he headed and shaped.

Kalam came to the DRDO today for an audience with erstwhile colleagues with whom he worked for more than two decades. He came of his own volition, pained that the DRDO was taking so much flak for failed projects, time and cost overruns.

He hoped he had come as a solution and not as a problem. He came with his laptop and a power-point presentation and a prescription.

He did not analyse what ails the DRDO — he assumed the audience already knew — but with a prescription of stiff doses. Among them, he said, the DRDO needs to change its “organisational culture”.

Inside the DRDO’s new headquarters behind South Block, the President at first admired the auditorium and then listened with rapt attention to M. Natarajan, the current head of the DRDO, who occupies the seat Kalam did between 1992 and 1999.

Natarajan said that during the directors’ meeting, the DRDO would introspect and debate business planning models to chart a new course for itself. He said DRDO scientists had now designed on paper a Medium Combat Aircraft (in the 20-tonne class) and were also working on an Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle.

The current budget allocation for the organisation is Rs 5,454 crore. Its cumulative cost overruns on many of its projects run into nearly twice that figure. Despite the cynicism, Natarajan soldiers on.

Only last week, the DRDO-designed Intermediate Jet Trainer crashed during take-off in an international air-show in Bangalore.

The Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) project is a decade behind schedule — forcing the Indian Air Force to look for imports — and the DRDO-designed Main Battle Tank Arjun is seen by the army as too heavy and cumbersome for warfare.

Kalam did not dwell on any of these projects but sliced through the DRDO’s failures like a stealth fighter through waves of an archaic radar.

He said his team had studied for today’s lecture for the last few days. He began by outlining the changing nature of warfare and urged its scientists to design technologies that were needed in that context.

Agreed? he asked. Mumble.

He said the DRDO like any research outfit had a record of successes and failures from which it has learnt.

Agreed? he wondered aloud. Murmur

Kalam asked for volunteers to pass around microphones among the audience so that they might respond.

Then he switched gears and said he was sure the audience was not responding because they were afraid the bosses might disapprove. So, he said: “Email me”.

He said restructuring the organisation should be a priority. He outlined a five-year programme during which the DRDO should make a commitment to the services to deliver some products, look for production partners for these products and develop force-multiplier systems.

If the DRDO took its tasks seriously, he believed, it would deliver.

Once his former boss Satish Dhavan (former head of Isro) had told him: “If you do no work, there will be no problem.”

Agreed? Nodding of heads.