IN August, there was a story in the Indian Express (IE) on the `refuellers saga`, if one can call it by that name, concerning the Indian Air Force (IAF). ‘’The IAF is set to revive the process of procuring six mid-air refuellers after failing to make any headway during two earlier attempts over the last two decades…This is the IAF’s third attempt since 2007 to buy the tankers. Two of its earlier tenders were scrapped due to pricing disputes,’’ said the IE report. Imagine a country that is on the verge of a $ four- trillion economy, and hasn’t been able to acquire half a dozen refuellers—a critical component of its two-front war strategy as well as its Indo-Pacific ambitions for some reason or the other.
Take another case, the Avro replacement programme. The Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued in May 2013 and the sale bid by Airbus and Tata Group with the C-295 aircraft was approved by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) in May 2015. The programme was finally greenlighted by the Union Cabinet in early 2022 and the foundation stone of the project was laid the same year.
Unique model
Writing on Twitter, Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur (Retd.) said: “This is some development! The ‘Avro model’, as this procurement has come to be labelled, is unique in many respects and could be used in other large-scale projects. It started in 2010 when I was Assistant Chief of Air Staff (ACAS) Operations! 11 years for approval – still many to go before the first aircraft comes in.”
Now to come to the aircraft carrier. On November 30, the DAC—headed by Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh– met in Delhi and cleared projects worth Rs two lakh crores. However, as The Times of India reported,’’ the acceptance of necessity (AoN) for the second indigenous aircraft carrier (IAC-2), which will be built at Cochin Shipyard for around Rs 40,000 crore as a “repeat order” of the 44,000-tonne INS Vikrant or IAC-1, will be taken up at the next DAC meeting.’’
Costs go up
That the IAC-2 has come to this stage is by itself a miracle considering the battering the Air Force and the Navy were subjected to by the country’s first Chief of Defence Staff, the late Gen Bipin Joshi, who saw them as nothing but appendages to his definition of the real sword arm of the forces-the Indian Army.
Now that it has come to the DAC no one knows why it was postponed to the next meeting. Both the Avro replacement project (now under implementation) and the refuellers (yet to be formalised) have seen their costs skyrocket thanks to the delay, it will be the same with IAC-2. While there has been a delay in finalising many critical projects, defence exports have increased by 23 times.
Once viewed as a big ticket defence equipment importer, the country now exports a wide range of major platforms, including aircraft like the Dornier-228, artillery guns, Brahmos Missiles, PINAKA rockets & launchers, radars, simulators, armoured vehicles, etc. The global demand for India’s indigenous products, such as the LCA-Tejas, Light Combat Helicopters, aircraft carriers, and MRO activities, are also on the rise.
Invaluable asset
With the achievement of surpassing over Rs 12000 crore in defence production in FY23, marking a year-on-year growth of over 12 per cent, India is ramping up to produce the most complex and sophisticated equipment under the Atmanirbhar Bharat programme.
However, it is important to develop both a marketing muscle and a deep concern for keeping an assembly line in inertia.
The Government must clear the aircraft order in the next meeting of the DAC. The huge delay between the first IAC and the IAC-2 could see the frittering away of invaluable manufacturing memory that resides in the form of the workers at the Cochin shipyard who built the country’s first made-in-India aircraft carrier. India simply cannot afford to squander away this invaluable asset.
Manufacturing prowess and memory are crucial ingredients. We need to nurture it and give them the bandwidth and opportunity to blossom and refine their abilities and pass them on to the next generation. Only then can we be a global powerhouse in defence exports.
