Research Centre Imarat, the Defense research institute in Hyderabad APJ Abdul Kalam had begun from scratch in the ’80s was enveloped in gloom as the scientific community, the administrative staff and the work force remembered with fondness the genial genius, noble soul, kind-hearted man who later went on to become India’s Missile Man and People’s President.
There was hardly an eye which was not moist and hardly any lip without something positive to say about the man who left so many landmarks behind in this city starting with the Research Center Imarat, the launching pad of so many other Defence research institutions in the city, to the missile program and a herbal garden in Rashtarpati Nilayam which he got developed during his tenure as the President of India. Kalam had spent many years in Hyderabad first starting as the chief of Defence Research and Development Organization in the early 1980s and then as the head of India’s indigenous rocket and missile programs.
He played a pivotal role in shaping and developing several Defence research facilities and laboratories as part of the huge DRDO and RCI complex at Kanchan Bagh on the city’s outskirts.
Hyderabad in a way was the launching pad of Kalam’s meteoric rise which ultimately took him to the highest constitutional position of President of the country.
Recalling Kalam’s work as a Defence scientist in Hyderabad, Satish Reddy, present head of RCI said, “DRDO has risen in his guidance. Several Defence laboratories like DRDl, Midhani, RCI and ICBM were established under his guidance”.
“At DRDO and elsewhere too he always told us how to look at a problem, what should be target and how to achieve it,” he recalled.
In fact, Dr Kalam was instrumental in persuading AP Government to allot 2100 acres of land for setting up DRDO and RCI in Hyderabad.