The rationale for more ranges

THE Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) will set up a new range at Machilipatnam, Andhra Pradesh, to test-fire interceptor and other missiles. It may build one more range, in one of the islands of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago.

At present, the DRDO launches its smaller missiles such as Prithvi, Akash and BrahMos from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur, Odisha, and its Agni I, II, III, IV and V and the interceptor missiles from Wheeler Island, off the Odisha coast.

Avinash Chander, Chief Controller (Missiles and Strategic Systems), DRDO, told Frontline: China has four [missile-testing] ranges. The U.S. has seven. We have only one. Now, if we have more than one range, we can have geometry in our territory. If I have two more ranges, one in Machilipatnam and the other in the Andamans, and also a floating test range, I can find a credible scenario where I can test my defence systems and launch systems in different directions to take care of incoming missiles with a range of 2,000 km to 5,000 km.

The DRDO is trying to set up ranges where there is no commercial activity. The 260-acre area near Machilipatnam where the range will come up, gets inundated most of the time, said Chander. No cultivation is going on there. Neither is the place inhabited.

There are no issues and we are looking for minimum land, the Chief Controller said. Wherever the DRDO has acquired land and set up a facility, it has added to the economic prosperity of the area, he claimed. Our ecological record is one of the best in the country. There are more trees and greenery on our campuses [than in their neighbourhood]. Our utilisation of land is absolutely minimal. We do not touch the land that is not necessary to be used, he said.

Asked whether the DRDO was seeking to set up the Machilipatnam range because the Odisha government had overruled the DRDOs objections to a port coming up at Dhamra, Chander said the Machilipatnam range had nothing to do with the port coming up at Dhamra. [Wheeler Island is about 15 km as the crow flies from Dhamra village on the shore.]

T.S. Subramanian