Air Vice Marshal Vettakkorumakankav Sivarama Narayanan was posted to the Defence Research and Development Laboratory in 1972, as its Director and Project Officer. There, he built up extensive and comprehensive infrastructure relating to rocket tests, flight range fabrication, aerodynamics, structural tests, environmental tests and quality control, He also built up technological competence in the fields of propulsion, navigation guidance, control, structures, computer science and system technology. He activated a number of sister Research and Development Laboratories and production units, in their respective areas of specialisation and production competence, as relevant to the large weapon systems. He also has motivated, trained and built up a team of young dedicated scientists to form the “core" in the various areas of Missile Technology. These efforts have taken the shape of a complete integrated complex system for utilising and harnessing the resources of the various production units into a time-bound and cost-bound hardware development programme. Thereby a nucleus of powerful project management capability for large projects has been established.

Air Vice Marshal Vettakkorumakankav Sivarama Narayanan has thus rendered distinguished service of the most exceptional order.