Thread by @cvkrishnan

Summary on Kaveri Engine shared by MoS MoD today in Rajya Sabha. Thanks to @subhsara
We at last get the total expenditure on the Kaveri program, Rs 2035.56 crore
This is pittance compared to the Multi Billion $ effort that serious nations mount.
WE'RE JUST NOT SERIOUS ABOUT IT!

@subhsara Explains why the govt dropped jaws when Safran quoted 500 million euros to develop test and certify the engine further(aside offsets). Till then both DRDO & Govt were lying to themselves that we can get a jet engine cheap. They cudn't accept this reality! economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/d…

@subhsara I'm guessing the govt would've never signed off on a domestic engine development project if it knew it would cost upward of Rs 30,000 crores. The DRDO would've tried to keep the govt happy feeding it with false promises that it could get it done at <$2,500 crores.

@subhsara Having reduced its budget to a tenth of what serious players across the globe do, GTRE obviously had to cut corners(sorry entire zones) of R&D and tried to develop engine off existing know-how in the public domain. But everyone deep inside knew this was never going to be enough.

@subhsara No budget/authority to hire external consultants at the rate you can expect those with the niche expertise to come in. No budget to carry out extensive original R&D in key areas. No org character to be able to carry deep research. Now all sides caught with pants down.

If I'm not wrong, the previous GTRE director was the last person to go to GE and undergo more than an year's training back in early 1990s. What can anyone achieve in such a frontier field with restricted know-why with just few engineers spending an year with a consultant?

Will money alone solve this problem? No. But money will alleviate a lot of challenges. Later there will be more fundamental and application level research required and maybe if we are lucky we MIGHT crack 'A' solution within a decade.

Finally, adding this thread for the tech perspective.

https://twitter.com/cvkrishnan/status/1438434349196660739?s=20

Apart from the money a lot of knowledge black spaces are there domestically, that no IISc/IIT can fill in because it just doesn't exist in our country yet. We need outside experts if we want any remote chances of success. This cannot happen with the existing talent pool in India.

Unless, the govt is ready to fund parallel independent research in the IITs for sub-domain level research in multiple areas that will later feed into the GTRE base. Setting up labs, hiring the right brains, unrestricted funding for research will run to 1000s of crores of rupees.

Pragmatic for us to use the consultant partner to build an engine. These aren't things that can be mastered alone with our research base.

https://twitter.com/manupubby/status/1465261225579712515?s=20