Former DRDO Chief VK Saraswat and former NSA Shivshankar Menon

Hyderabad: Former National Security Adviser (NSA) Shivshankar Menon’s comments that the permission was never sought during the UPA regime for testing anti-satellite (A-SAT) missile are ‘erroneous’ and ‘a flight of imagination,’ said former Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) chief Dr VK Saraswat on Sunday.

“The comments made by Shivshankar Menon were erroneous and a flight of imagination,” said Dr Saraswat, also a NITI Aayog member, while referring to Menon’s interview to a news portal where he claimed that Dr Saraswat “never asked me for permission for A-SAT test.”

Talking to ANI, Dr Saraswat said that he had made an “informal presentation” to him and as there was no response from the government and no necessary financial resources were provided, they did not go ahead with the program.

“At that time, we had said that we are going to do two experiments, one with electronically simulated satellite trajectory and launching an interceptor against that to avoid debris in the environment. On the success of this, we had planned to do a test with the real satellite trajectory,” he had stated.

“It was during the tenure of Manohar Parrikar as the Defence Minister of India that the proposal was put forth by Dr G Satheesh Reddy, current Scientific Adviser to Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. National Security Adviser Ajit Doval shared the details with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The importance of such technology was highlighted to him. The Prime Minister showed the courage and vision to go ahead with the project,” he said. 

Dr Saraswat also praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the team of scientists for the successful test of India’s first anti-satellite weapon--A-SAT.