Crippling IAF gaps force government to set up panel for new road map

NEW DELHI: With the IAF grappling with an acute shortage of fighter aircraft as well as force-multipliers, the govt has constituted a high-level committee under defence secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh to chalk out a roadmap to plug the major operational gaps in the force.
The committee will examine the IAF's overall capability development through several indigenous design and development as well as direct acquisition projects. "Among the three Services, IAF has the most critical capability voids. The committee will submit its report by the end of Jan," a source said.
DRDO chief Samir V Kamat, secretary (defence production) Sanjeev Kumar and IAF deputy chief Air Marshal Tejinder Singh, among others, are the members of the committee.
The need to fast-track projects has been reinforced by the way the Chinese air force has deployed additional fighters, bombers, reconnaissance aircraft and drones at all its airbases facing India, like Hotan, Kashgar, Gargunsa, Shigatse, Bangda, Nyingchi and Hoping, after upgrading them with new runways, hardened shelters, fuel and ammunition storage facilities.
With the IAF currently making do with just 30 fighter squadrons when 42.5 are authorised to tackle the threat from China and Pakistan, one of the major challenges before the committee will be to break the logjam over the long-pending project to manufacture 114 new 4.5-generation fighters, at an initial estimate of Rs 1.25 lakh crore, with foreign collaboration. "Some jets will be directly acquired, while the bulk will be produced in India," a source said.
Then, there is also the induction of indigenous Tejas Mark-1A fighters, which has taken a hit primarily because of the continuing delay in supply of engines by US major General Electric.
Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) will be able to deliver only two to three Tejas Mark-1A fighters instead of 16 promised to the IAF in the 2024-25 fiscal, under the Rs 46,898 crore deal for 83 such single-engine jets inked in Feb 2021. The order for another 97 TejasMark-1A fighters for Rs 67,000 crore is also in the pipeline.
Meanwhile, GE has promised to begin the deliveries of the contracted 99 GE-F404 turbofan jet engines by March 2025 now, around two years behind schedule.
HAL and GE, of course, are now also conducting the final techno-commercial negotiations for co-production of the more powerful GE-F414 aero-engines in India for the planned induction of at least 108 Tejas Mark-II fighters, with 80% transfer of technology for around $1 billion.
Induction of force-multipliers is also crucial. IAF, for instance, has just six IL-78 mid-air refuelers, inducted in 2003-04, when it requires at least 18 such aircraft to extend the operational range of its fighter jets.
In the "eyes in the sky" arena, India is even behind Pakistan, let alone China. IAF has just three indigenous 'Netra' airborne early-warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, apart from the three Israeli Phalcon AWACS inducted in 2009-11. Consequently, the plan to develop six Mark-1A and six Mark-2 versions of the Netra aircraft also needs to be fast-tracked.