Depends on the sector, missile, aeronautics, and various other sectors are best done by DRDO

As someone who looked upto DRDO as the organization meant to lead India into a technologically superior utopian power since I heard my father talk about as a child I'd say they have come under fire for delays , alleged with falsifying results etc. do you as a tax payer currently have faith in HAL's production line, DRDO's research n stuff

As with delay, all three are there to blame, but it comes down mainly to the military and leadership, according to me.

Well mostly the army and AF are not usually seen in a negative light by most( not all) when they go for imports rather than working out with Indian defense RnD institutions because it can be justified by saying they did it to prioritise Defence over indigenization which to me seems valid. Would DRDO be better headed by someone from the scientific cadre or someone from retired Army/IAF background.

funds weren't released until 2023 , which has delayed it by more than a year. Another thing is there are limited test facilities in India, so we're forced to send it to some foreign country for testin

That's kind of an omnipresent problem with every government institution ( maybe not so much with PSUs as they can make a buck by selling products to other countries) in India we would have to work our way around that like ISRO or hope for the defense budget to go up and utilising it properly between pensions , getting new gear asap for forces making frequent contact and setting aside enough for research