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Journalism of Courage
The two news items by Saikat Datta (AJT suppliers face trouble, June 13, and AJT suppliers run into trouble June 17) in The Indian Express bring out the fact that the Indian defence procurement systems do not cater to the need to acquire high-technology training and weapons systems in an acceptable time-frame. The parliamentary standing committee on defence also is critical of the fact that although two years of the X Plan period are over, the government has not finalised the defence plan indicating ‘‘ad-hocism and a non-serious approach’’.
The AJT deal is under active consideration of the government for about the last 17 years. Initially, the Defence ministry short-listed Dassault-France for the supply of the Alpha Jet trainer along with the Hawk, although Dassault had ceased production of the Alpha Jet in 1986 itself! And now, the ministry has short-listed companies, which are financially in debt and technically inadequate. The government created the Defence Procurement Board on 24 August 2001, inter alia, to examine ‘‘proposals regarding procurement procedures and consider cases for approval on a ‘fast-track’ basis’’. It appears that the DPB is a non-starter and the AJT muddle continues to jumble.
War preparedness directly depends on the peace-time standards of training which in turn depend upon the level of sophistication of training aids. Air Commodore Jasjit Singh, AVSM, VrC, VM says in his path-breaking article on India’s defence spending (Issues and implications, Feb 3), ‘‘The real area where Chinese military modernisation is rapidly changing the future military balance is in the field of air power… Concurrently, given the nature of relations between China and Pakistan, modernisation of China’s military capability has a spin-off effect on building up Pakistan’s military-technological capabilities’’. The importance of acquiring a state-of-the art AJT to attain perfection in operating fighter aircraft, therefore, cannot be over-emphasised. The delay in acquiring the AJT has resulted in increasing air accidents entailing loss of lives of our fighter pilots, who are difficult to replace in a hurry.
Both the British Hawk and Czech L-159B are in deep financial trouble. British Aerospace (BAe) has officially announced 450 redundancies with another 470 workers’ jobs under threat. The British government is keen on the Indian order to protect jobs in BAe’s factory at Brough in east Yorkshire, in close proximity to the constituencies of deputy prime minister John Prescott and trade secretary Alan Johnson. The British politicians are thus using the Hawk to boost their electoral prospects at tremendous cost to the Indian exchequer.
The AJTs, especially the Hawk, are not state-of-the-art and entail enormous costs (about 45 per cent higher than the rest in the market). The Hawk is already more than 40 years in service. By the time BAe delivers it in 2007, it would be 44 years old. In 2014 when the Hawk is at age 51; the Indian Air Force will have to send it back to Britain to fit new wings!
The UK Treasury Department is of the view that the Hawk does not meet value-for-money criterion and would cost the British tax-payers at least £1b more. In fact, the Royal Air Force and the UK ministry of defence are negotiating with Aermacchi of Italy for the M-346 trainer for their military training flying system (MTFS) programme.
BAe is lately under a cloud on alleged bribery charges. Some of these allegations also figure in Tehelka’s Operation West End. There are allegations in the United States based on CIA reports and rival firms that point to bribery in a Czech arms deal. The UK newspaper, The Guardian, has in its possession documents to substantiate these assertions. While the BAe has denied these charges, two senior Czech politicians have separately claimed of bribe offers last year in an attempt to prevent them voting against the £2b deal to buy Gripen fighter jets from a BAe-Saab joint venture.
The IAF has agreed to evaluate new tenders (‘‘No phase-out of MIG-21s, June 26). The government should not, therefore, waste any more time in short-listing afresh financially and technically suitable parties. The Union Cabinet should formulate a high-powered committee comprising the Chief of the Air Staff as Chairman, with Secretaries of Defence and Defence Production as members, and Deputy Chief of the Air Staff as member-secretary to finalise the deal in the next four months, that is, if the government means business and is really concerned about national security.
(The author is a retired Major General)
