HYDERABAD, Oct 23: Plans are afoot to enhance indigenous content in the defence inventory from the present 30 per cent to 70 per cent by the year 2005 to make the defence forces self-reliant, scientific adviser to the Prime Minister A P J Abdul Kalam said here on Thursday.Delivering the convocation address of 66th degree engineering course of Military College of Electronics and Mechanical Engineering (MCEME) here, he said that by 2005, many indigenous missiles, aircraft, tanks, armaments, naval systems and radars would be inducted.He said that the country was today encountering two problems. One was large-scale strengthening of neighbours through supply of arms and clandestine support to their nuclear and missile programmes. The other was the efforts being made to weaken indigenous growth through control regimes and dumping low quality technology systems accompanied by high commercial pitch in critical areas.Growth of indigenous technology was the only answer, he said and stressed the need to armIndia with technology. ``We have talented manpower, natural resources and high technology base and we must build our strength and combat the control regimes through innovation, partnership and above all national will,'' he observed.Kalam, at length, spoke about the nuclear test conducted by the country and development in space and missile technology. ``Our guided missiles have demonstrated the country's capability to develop high technology strategic systems without any help from outside and our research and development cost varies from one tenth to one third of the advanced nations depending on the type of the programme.Stating that self-reliance can be achieved only by the combined efforts of services, DRDO and the partners from the industry and academy, he said that the partnership of DRDO and Army resulted in the development of many state-of-the-art systems like Prithvi missile.MCEME commandant Lt Gen D B Singh said that the MCEME was the first educational institute in the country tosecure ISO 9001 certification for quality in training and development of simulators. He said that 250 officers and 2,000 other personnel were undergoing training in 65 different programmes.Thirty-three officers from EME and one officer from Armed Corps graduated on Thursday and 26 officers were awarded M Tech in mechanical and electronics faculties.Kalam gave away certificates and medals to the candidates. Capt P Kalai Mohan secured gold medal for overall development, Brig V Sreeramulu the rolling shield and commandants silver medal for first-in-order. Capt D Chakravarty won Capt N K Agarwal Memorial Trophy for best all-round student and co-curricular technology activities award in electronic stream.
