It was early in the morning on 30 April 2024 when I received a call, rather unexpectedly, from Bhanu Praveen (third from right in the above picture), the CEO of Senseimage technologies after almost five months of radio silence. He sounded quite excited and simply said “Its Done”.
Explaining further he said the Association For Drone Avionics Research & Testing (ADART) has been registered on 26 April 2024.
The ADART is the name given to the facility approved under the unique DTIS (Defence Testing infrastructure Scheme) for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) for Defence Corridor Tamil Nadu. the company registered The formal signing of the MoU took place on 02 Jul 2024. It was a proud moment for me as not only I had put in a lot of effort for the bid to go through but I sincerely believed in the importance of the project seeing the light of the day as it has the potential of stimulating the growth of the Drone industry. I had been associated with the bidding process for almost eleven months till the announcement of the letter of award in July 2023. My association with the project makes for an interesting story but first the following is the transcript of the press release by Ministry of Defence (MoD) on 02 July 2024 :
“Ministry of Defence (MoD) has signed an MoU to establish three state-of-the-art testing facilities in Chennai under the Tamil Nadu Defence Industrial Corridor – one each in Unmanned Aerial System (UAS), Electronic Warfare (EW) and Electro Optics (EO) domains. The MoU, under the Defence Testing Infrastructure Scheme (DTIS), was exchanged between senior officials of MoD and Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation Limited in the presence of Defence Secretary Shri Giridhar Aramane in New Delhi on July 02, 2024.
With an outlay of Rs 400 crore, the DTIS was launched by Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh in May 2020 to set up state-of-the-art testing facilities in collaboration with private industry and Central/State Government, promoting indigenous defence production, reducing military equipment imports and enhancing self-reliance. To provide impetus to the defence and aerospace sectors within the Defence Industrial Corridors, seven testing facilities were approved – four in Tamil Nadu and three in Uttar Pradesh. The MoU for three facilities in Tamil Nadu has been signed today.
The DTIS provides up to 75% government funding as ‘Grant-in-Aid’, with the remaining 25% funded by the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPVs), comprising Indian private entities and State/Central Governments.
For the UAS testing facility, Keltron, a government of Kerala undertaking, is the lead SPV member, with some private sector companies being the consortium members. Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and India Optel Limited (IOL) are the lead SPV members in the EW and EO testing facilities respectively.
Upon the completion of the project, they will provide advanced testing equipment and services to both government and private industry, thus giving a boost to ‘Aatmanirbharta’ in defence.”
My association with the project started with an exchange of messages on LinkedIn with Mr Mothilal Govindaswamy on 26 Aug 2022.We agreed to discuss further after 10th of September as I had some commitments till then. But then he was adamant and we had an online meeting on 30 August 2022. On 1st September I came to know of the RFP of the DTIS project and on 02 Sept I found myself attending the Pre-bid meeting on the project hosted by Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation Limited. I was a part of the developing Drone ecosystem long enough after my retirement in June 2020 to understand the significance of the project for developing the capabilities of the Indian industry.. I was also informed that KELTRON was also a part of the project. On 8th September I was at Chennai office of Senseimage technologies Pvt. Ltd, where for the first time I met Bhanu Praveen and was introduced to the rest of the team.
Thus, began a the journey to bid for the DTIS-UAS project.
A short time later I came to know that the project had found no takers the first time around because of the tough conditions stipulated within the RFP and this was the second time the RFP was floated as per procedures in force in the SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle ) mode. The most stringent one was the mandated establishment of a company with a minimum of four private businesses as a consortia with TIDCO being the primary partner. The establishing of a “no-profit no-loss” (Section-8) company made no business sense and rightly so.
To complicate the bid I knew KELTRON was a primary constituent that added a lot of muscle to the bid and it was imperative to have its whole hearted support. But the upper management was a reluctant participant initially and was willing to participate without any financial burden. It took a lot of convincing on my part as to the feasibility and the real opportunity accorded by the project. Besides having online meetings and email exchanges explaining the project details I also travelled to meet the MD of Keltron during the DEFTECH exhibition in Ahmedabad, Gujarat in Feb 2023. By this time it was clear that we had a good team building up with STC Testing labs on board as a consortium member. The Draft Project Report (DPR) was taking shape and was to be presented to TIDCO & MoD. A number of queries on the submitted documents and DPR were received and replied to. The main elements of the discussions rested around meeting the rather stringent conditions of the RFP.
By beginning of April 2022 it was clear that we were in a Single vendor situation with no other consortia having bid for the project. Good drafting skills resulted in all technical queries being settled and opening of the commercial bid. At this stage (Beginning of May 2023) a clerical mistake had resulted in a major observation. One of the RFP conditions had stipulated that the cost of building must not exceed 20% of the project cost. To our relief our detailed explanation had been accepted and the final IFA sanction was set to be accorded in Defense Secretary’s office on 04 July 2023. On the stated day I was a part of certain animated discussions among certain senior ranking officers of the GoI who believed that the approval must not be granted without clarifications. This last minute hiccup was handled by a courageous decision by a General ranking officer who reasoned out and overruled all objections of DRDO and other representatives and IFA approval was accorded in the presence of TIDCO officials from Tamil Nadu.
Finally DTIS-UAS was becoming a reality with a bit of push from a senior official from MoD and a concerted effort by BHanu and Self on behalf of the consortia. Once the Letter of Award was issued and the journey towards the establishing ADART would be another interesting story for another time.
Needless to say it feels good to be a part of a project which is genuinely going to impact the growth of the fledgling drone industry and provide a base for all the budding Drone Entrepreneurs saving them a lot of needless expenditure as well as time.
In all probability Bhanu will lead ADART and its management team. Best wishes to him.
