The Minister of Defence, Finance and Corporate Affairs Arun Jaitley handed over three Naval Systems indigenously developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to the Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sunil Lanba recently.

The Minister also released two other products developed by DRDO namely IP-based Secure Phone and the Gallium Nitride Technology. Jaitley remarked that DRDO is becoming an important instrument for self-reliance of the nation. He stated that some of the best innovations have come from the pool of scientists of DRDO. The Defence Minister also said that great societies and nations are made through people working on important tasks in anonymity, like the DRDO scientists.

The Minister gave away the annual DRDO awards in various categories during the function. Apart from the scientists and teams who won awards in various vistas of technological excellence, the Advanced Systems Laboratory in Hyderabad and the Microwave Tube Research & Development Centre in Bengaluru won the coveted Silicon Trophy and Titanium Trophy respectively.

Dr Subhash Bhamre, Minister of State for Defence, said DRDO is playing an important role in self-reliance of defence forces and the export potential of the organisation is finding a place in the global defence market.

The Chairman of DRDO and Secretary, Department of Defence (R&D) Dr S. Christopher said that the Defence Acquisition Council cleared order value of DRDO products has gone up to Rs. 2,56,000 crore out of which about Rs. 1,00,000 crore was in the last two years alone.