By Vishnu Makhijani
New Delhi, Dec 30 (IANS) Despite ambitious plans and repeated assertions by officials, the much needed modernisation of the Indian armed forces took a knock in the year gone by, with cost and timeline escalations as also charges of corruption pushing back the process.
Not surprisingly, the 1.2 million strong Indian Army – the world’s fourth largest – was the worst affected with its plans to induct 400 additional 155 mm field howitzers, at least 124 indigenous Arjun main battle tanks (MBTs) and 197 light helicopters going on the backburner.
The Indian Navy was on a slightly more even keel with 34 vessels of various types, including destroyers, frigates and submarines on order from Indian and foreign yards.
However, a price row over the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya that India has purchased from Russia has raised a serious question mark over the navy’s intention to grow into a three-carrier force. This is all the more so due to delays in the production of an indigenous aircraft carrier and doubts whether its sole carrier INS Viraat will remain operational beyond 2012.
A similar situation prevails in the Indian Air Force (IAF), one of the world’s oldest and which celebrated its platinum jubilee on Oct 8, with the induction of the indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft (LCA) delayed to around 2012.
On the plus side, the IAF has begun receiving the first of the 66 Hawk advanced jet trainers (AJTs) it has purchased from Britain’s BAE Systems. The IAF has also floated a long-delayed global tender for 126 multi-role combat jets – but given the lumbering manner in which the Indian bureaucracy functions, it could be at least six years before the first of these aircraft starts arriving.
As for the Indian Army, it has for about a decade now been scouting for some 400 field howitzers it wants to add to a similar number of Bofors guns it had purchased in the 1980s in a deal that was enmeshed in controversy.
However, even after the Supreme Court cleared the principal figures in the 1986 deal – including late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi – the stink of the alleged scam continues to prevail.
The Bofors gun had emerged on top in a series of trials conducted over the past few years but such is the purported anathema of the ruling Congress party to the Bofors nomenclature that the army authorities are believed to be extremely wary of recommending the gun.
This in spite of the fact that the Bofors gun saved the day for India when Pakistani intruders occupied the heights of Kargil in Jammu and Kashmir in 1999, leading to a brief but bitter border war.
In the two decades since its inception, the number of Bofors guns held by the Indian Army has shrunk to about 200 due to normal wear and tear and cannibalisation to keep the guns operational.
As for the Arjun, which has been some 35 years in the making, at least two Indian army chiefs have questioned its utility due to a series of defects that have emerged during trials, even as the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) says these have been ironed out.
The army has now been handed the rectified tanks for another set of trials but it will be at least six months before the results are known. And, given the army’s stated lack of comfort with the tank, it could well be that it will order no more than the 124 it has already contracted.
In fact, the delays in the Arjun project had prompted the army to initially order some 300 T-90 MBTs from Russia in the 1990s with another 1,000 later added to the shopping list. Now, with the Arjun further delayed, the army was forced to add another 300 of the machines.
As if all this was not bad enough, the year closed with the news that the army’s proposal to purchase 197 Eurocopter Fennec choppers has been shot down due to irregularities in the selection process. A new tender will now be issued, even as the Army Aviation Corps struggles to keep aloft the 1960-vintage Cheetah and Chetak helicopters that the Fennec was to replace.
As for the Indian Navy, it received a rude shock earlier this year when Russia abruptly demanded an additional $1.2 billion over and above the $1.5 billion agreed to for the Vikramadiyta and its 19 MiG-29K fighter jets.
The Russians now say that the extent of work on renovating the aircraft carrier is much greater than was previously anticipated.
Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony raised the issue during his visit to Moscow in October and two committees were formed to resolve the issue. Once this is out of the way, a new complication will arise as the shipyard where the ship is being refitted has transferred the bulk of its workforce to the construction of a new nuclear submarine.
As of now, the Russians have not set a new timeline for the carrier’s delivery.
In 2007 New Delhi also considerably ramped up its defence diplomacy with the Indian and Chinese armies staging their first war game at Kunming in China and the Indian Navy participating in the biggest ever joint exercise in the Bay of Bengal with its counterparts from the US, Australia, Japan and Singapore.