PARMANU: THE STORY OF

POKHRAN – A STUDY IN RISK

MANAGEMENT STRATEGY

Submitted To: Dr. Chetan Panse

Submitted By: Anushka Srivastava (41131) Division - C
 Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran

Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran – A Study in Project Management

I. Introduction
Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran is an Indian Hindi language feature film based on the Pokhran-
II tests which completed in the Pokhran range, in Rajasthan, by the Indian Army, in May 1998.
Pokhran-II consisted of five detonations, the first of which was a fusion bomb while the
remaining four were fission bombs. The tests were initiated on 11 May 1998, under the assigned
code name Operation Shakti, with the detonation of one fusion and two fission bombs.
On 13 May 1998, two additional fission devices were detonated, and the Indian government
led by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee shortly convened a press conference to declare
India a full-fledged nuclear state.

Fig. A cylindrical shaped nuclear bomb, Shakti I, prior to its detonation.

The tests had the codename Operation Shakti, and were instrumental in India joining a select
group of nations which could harness nuclear energy for military purposes. The project was a
resonating success, given the geo-political circumstances (China was already a full-fledged
nuclear state and was opposed to India’s efforts to go down the same route. Pakistan had a
very strong strategic alliance with the USA, which resulted in the USA arm-twisting the
Indian government against any nuclear tests). Eventually the project led by the then DRDO
chief, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam succeeded against monumental political odds. It is a study in
risk management.

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 Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran

II. Project Risk and its Significance in Pokhran

Q1. Describe briefly project risk, its identification, assessment, priority, risk response
planning and risk management methods.

A1. Project risk is an uncertain event or condition that affects at least one project objective
when it occurs. Risk management focuses on the identification and assessment of project
risks and the management of these risks in order to minimize project impact. There are no
risk-free projects, as there are countless events that can have a negative impact on the project.
Risk management does not involve the elimination of risk, but the identification, evaluation
and management of risk. Known risks are events that have been identified and analysed for
which advanced planning is possible. Other risks are unknown or unforeseen.

Example of Project Risk:

Project team members were flying to a project review meeting in South Carolina, USA when
a severe storm caused all flights to be cancelled. Members of the leadership team could not
make the meeting and weren’t even able to return to their home base for a couple of days.

Identification of Project Risk:

There are a number of methods in use for risk identification. Comprehensive databases of the
events on past projects are very helpful; however, this knowledge frequently lies buried in
people’s minds, and access to it involves brainstorming sessions by the project team or a
significant subset of it. In addition to technical expertise and experience, personal contacts
and group dynamics are keys to successful risk identification. The risk identification process
on a project is typically one of brainstorming, and the usual rules of brainstorming apply:

1.The full project team should be actively involved.

2. Potential risks should be identified by all members of the project team.

3. No criticism of any suggestion is permitted.

4. Any potential risk identified by anyone should be recorded, regardless of whether other
members of the group consider it to be significant.
The risks identified with this project were:-
 Improper assembly of the warhead vessels: - This is a technical risk. The nuclear
explosion was supposed to be a controlled one, in an underground shaft. The core
of the bomb, a plutonium bomb, is quite unstable and has to be housed safely in a
vessel that is capable of stabilizing it till the time of the explosion. The BARC
scientist recruited in this project had the job of securing such warhead vessels and
assessing the fitness of said vessels until the test is conducted. In this case, risk
impact was catastrophic, with several cities buried underground and millions of
civilians dead. The probability of the risk occurring was medium to low. This had
a high priority in the Risk register checklist. In case the catastrophe happened, the
response plan to send in the Indian Army to support and evacuate the survivors.
To mitigate the risk involved, the scientist was to supervise every vessel the
warheads went in, and also, the army bought a huge quantity of onions to soak in
the radiation in case of any unplanned fallout.
 Poor condition of the shafts:- This is also a technical risk. The team wanted to
detonate the nuclear bombs in three old shafts, which were to be used in the earlier
test, and they also wanted to use three dry wells in the region as shafts. The old
shafts were filled with water due to years of non-maintenance, which meant that
they had to be drained out. Here also, the risk impact would be catastrophic and
high risk priority, as detonating the bomb is poorly maintained shafts would cause
radiation leakage, affecting army officials and people living around the range. The
DRDO & BARC scientists were in charge of modifying and repairing the shafts to
properly conduct the test. Also, to manage the risk involved, the scientists
maintained a strict watch on the processes, from the horsepower of the pumps to
soldering the steel plates inside the shaft.

 Getting caught by American Lacrosse Spy satellite:- This is an external risk. To

stop India from testing nuclear warheads, USA had assigned a powerful spy
satellite that could capture and record even the minute details going on around
Pokhran. Therefore, the team could not move freely with the project as and when
they wanted. Here, the project risk was medium to high, as it could result in USA
imposing strict sanctions on India and also, India’s image would get tarnished in
front of the world. USA backed Pakistan and China also contributed to this
external risk with China conducting several nuclear tests and Pakistan launching a
ballistic missile to welcome India’s newly elected Prime minister. Probability of
risk occurrence was high as the satellite was focused on the region for 22 out of 24
hours. Risk priority was high, and to mitigate said risk, Aswath used civilian ISA
to identify the blindspots in the satellite rotation and worked exclusively in the 1
hour blindspot. Later, when they had to expedite the project, the team spread false
reports about a war in Kashmir, so that the satellites would be re-tasked to
Kashmir region, allowing them to work in 8 hour shifts per day.

 Presence of intelligence agents in the area:- This is also an external risk. As many
neighboring countries did not have a favorable view towards India testing nuclear
warheads, they stationed their agents in and around various army hotspots,
Pokhran being one of them. Considering the secrecy of the project, leakage of
information posed a serious threat. The team could not just arrive at Pokhran and
start their work. The probability of risk occurrence would be Medium-to-High,
seeing that agents from different agencies were working in tandem to sabotage the
project. Risk impact would be medium and risk priority would be medium to high.
Risk management measures included the team members assuming code names
pertaining to Pandavas and false identities of ASI officials and later, that of Army
officials.

 Inadequate time-frame for implementation and uncertain natural conditions: This

is an instance of an external as well as organizational risk. Due to the changing
political scenario in India, where the coalition government was at risk, they
couldn't stick to their original plan and were forced to expedite the process. This
created unforeseen problems in the system. Reducing the time frame created extra
strain of different arms of the project – assembly, cabling, shaft repairing and
other logistical areas. In one case, generators couldn’t handle the extra load and
the region went into a blackout. Probability of risk occurrence was high, risk
impact would be medium and risk priority would be medium to high. Adding on
to that, the region was prone to frequent sandstorms which made it difficult to
work in day, as the storms would expose the hidden track marks, allowing
Americans to know about the project. To manage this risk, the team spread war
hysteria across the country, so that external intelligence agencies would focus on a
different region (Kashmir). To combat the sandstorms exposing the project, the
 team relied on the discipline and work ethic of the army, where the soldiers would
spring into action and cover up any proof of their workings immediately.

 Unstable geo-political landscape:- This is a again a mix of external and

organizational risk. The project had heavy dependencies on the Indian government
and needed approval from the Prime minister. But, since the other nations were
against India conducting a nuclear test and the opposition was vehemently against
such steps undertaken by the ruling party, the project was paused multiple times in
its lifetime and had to be expedited as well. Even the final order to conduct the
test was given in code. Risk occurrence probability was medium to high, risk
impact was medium to high and risk priority was high. Risk management
measures includes the government leaking a false war report which shifted the
international community’s view to another area and carrying out peace talks with
US simultaneously. It also participated in discussions with the opposition many
times in the Parliament, albeit amidst chaos. This allowed the project to be setup
and run with only minor hiccups, which were successfully countered by the team.

There are many ways to approach risk identification. Two possible approaches are (1) to
identify the root causes of risks—that is, identify the undesirable events or things that can go
wrong and then identify the potential impacts on the project of each such event—and (2) to
identify all the essential functions that the project must perform or goals that it must reach to
be considered successful and then identify all the possible modes by which these functions
might fail to perform. Both approaches can work, but the project team may find it easier to
identify all the factors that are critical to success, and then work backward to identify the
things that can go wrong with each one.
 Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran

Q2. Explain the project risk in “Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran”. Explain the risk
mitigation strategy in detail.

A2. The project in the movie involved the installation of nuclear test sites in Pokhran in the
summer of 1998. Since Pokhran is in Rajasthan, which is close to the Pakistan border, and
two American satellites were continuously monitoring the Indian Army’s activities in
Rajasthan, the biggest risk was SECRECY. To mitigate this risk, the following steps were
taken by Dr. Ashwath Raina (the convenor of the project, portrayed by John Abraham).

Risk mitigation strategy in any project involves one of the following measures:-
•Assume/Accept: Acknowledge the existence of a particular risk, and make a deliberate
decision to accept it without engaging in special efforts to control it. Approval of project or
program leaders is required.
•Avoid: Adjust program requirements or constraints to eliminate or reduce the risk. This
adjustment could be accommodated by a change in funding, schedule, or technical
requirements.
•Control: Implement actions to minimize the impact or likelihood of the risk.
•Transfer: Reassign organizational accountability, responsibility, and authority to another
stakeholder willing to accept the risk.
•Watch/Monitor: Monitor the environment for changes that affect the nature and/or the
impact of the risk.

Given the project was of utmost importance to bolster our national security, the strategy of
Assume/Accept was not feasible. While it’s true that the team identified multiple problems,
none of the risks were so acute that they couldn’t be prevented.

These were as follows:

1. Without a competent team, no project is successful. To ensure that the best brains of the
country were available in the team, Dr. Raina put together a a group of five individuals with
codenames, to ensure that foreign intelligence agencies could not get wind of the plan. These
individuals were:
A. Dr. Viraf Wadia: Codenamed Yudishthir, Dr. Wadia was a scientist at the BARC which
would be providing the nuclear bomb.
B. Major Prem Singh: Codenamed Bheem, Major Singh would be in charge of the
infrastructural design and the Indian Army furnished manpower at Pokhran.
C. Dr. Naresh Sinha: Codenamed Arjun, Dr. Sinha was a scientist at DRDO, which would
be supplying the detonator for the bomb.
D. Dr. Puru Ranganathan: Codenamed Sahadev, Dr. Ranganthan was from the agency
ISA, and would help hoodwink the American satellites.
E. Ambalika Bandopadhyay: Codenamed Nakul, Miss Bandopadhyay was a RAW agent
who would help in maintaining the secrecy of the organization.

The team would be headed by Dr. Raina who had the codenamed Krishna, since he was the
convenor of the project activities leading to the nuclear bomb test. Dr Raina was directly
employed by Himanshu Shukla, at the Government of India. Each member would be a single
point of contact at their respective organizations.
 Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran

2. The biggest risk was secrecy. The question arrived, “how do you avoid the test site detection”
by the highly powerful American satellites?” To this, Dr. Ranganathan arrived at a solution.
He suggested that the two American satellites which relayed information to each other, had a
blind spot window, one each in the day and at night-time. Since day-time was too risky, all
operational activities related to setting up the test site and making the shaft wells ready
(codenamed White House, Kumbhakaran and Taj Mahal). Jeeps having wipe out mats
attached to them would ferry the members and the mats would wipe out the jeep-tracks, to
leave no trail.

3. A risk that arose was unexpected project closure. This was because the then president of
the USA, Bill Clinton attempted to put political pressure on the Prime Minister of India, Atal
Behari Vajpayee. To counter this, Dr. Raina promised Shukla, to speed up the completion of
the project and attempt to complete it only in 10 days.

4. The frequent sandstorms that were a constant feature of the Thar desert, threatened to
derail the secrecy of the project, by blowing the covers off the installations. This was
mitigated by working in the daytime blind-spot, to replace the covers, even though working
in day-time itself was a risk.

5. Spies were also a constant risk. A Pakistani spy near Pokhran, constantly fed information
for to Daniel, a CIA agent, who would relay it to his superiors, who wold redouble satellite
surveillance. Dr. Raina came up with a solution. He suggested that India should make a
formal declaration of escalation of a military standoff with Pakistan, in Kashmir. This would
subvert the satellites and the resulting distraction would allow larger blind-spot time frames
for the completion of installations.

Ultimately all these strategies paid off, and the intelligence hoodwink of the USA allowed
Operation Shakti to be successfully culminated in the detonation of the nuclear bombs,
heralding India’s birth as a nuclear superpower.

Fig. The ambit of American satellites (according to Dr. Raina), which would have to be
subverted by the ISA.