New DELHI: India on Tuesday gave the final nod for the acquisition of another 97 indigenous Tejas fighter jets and six advanced airborne early-warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft or “eyes in the sky”, collectively worth around Rs 85,500 crore, which will be crucial to tackle the collusive and `fused’ challenge from China-Pakistan in the years ahead.
The PM-led cabinet committee on security (CCS) approved the around Rs 66,500 crore deal for the 97 “improved” Tejas Mark-1A fighters to be produced by Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL), which will add to the 83 such single-engine light combat aircraft already ordered from the defence PSU under a Rs 46,898 crore deal inked in Feb 2021, top sources told TOI.
“The first two jets of the 83 ordered earlier are fully ready. The final weapons firing trials (including Astra air-to-air missiles) are slated for Sept. With the order for another 97 jets, HAL will be able to expand and stabilize its supply chains,” a source said.
Faced with flak from IAF chief Air Chief Marshal A P Singh for the huge delays in deliveries, HAL has promised to progressively scale up production to 20 Tejas per year, and then to 24-30 per year, with the third production line now fully functional in Nashik to add to the two existing ones at Bengaluru, apart from private sector supply chains.
The project for the six AEW&C aircraft, which will entail mounting active electronically scanned array antenna-based radars, electronic and signal intelligence systems on second-hand Airbus-321 planes bought earlier from Air India, in turn, will cost Rs 19,000 crore. “All six AEW&C aircraft will be delivered by 2033-34,” the source said.
The timely induction of the 180 Tejas Mark-1A fighters is needed to stem the rapid depletion in the number of IAF fighter squadrons (each has 16-18 jets), which will go down to its lowest-ever figure of 29 squadrons next month after retirement of the 36 old MiG-21s still in service.
The IAF, incidentally, is authorized 42.5 combat squadrons. Pakistan now has 25 fighter squadrons, and is slated to get at least 40 J-35A fifth-generation stealth jets from China in the near future.
China, of course, has more than four times the number of fighters, bombers and force-multipliers as compared to India. In the AEW&C arena, which are required to boost surveillance capabilities along the borders as well as help direct friendly fighters during air combat with enemy jets, India lags far behind even Pakistan.
The IAF currently has just three Netra AEW&C Mark-1 planes, with indigenous sensors mounted on Brazilian Embraer-145 jets for 240-degree radar coverage, and three Israeli `Phalcon’ radars mounted on Russian IL-76 aircraft.
The new AEW&C project will involve the A-321 narrow-body aircraft first being “hardened and modified” in Spain and then being equipped with an antenna in the nose in addition to the main dorsal antenna to give 300-degree radar coverage. “The project, which was finalized earlier, has seen a cost escalation of around Rs 7,000 crore since a lot of modifications are required on the A-321s,” the source said.
To make up numbers, the defence ministry in March also accorded the initial “acceptance of necessity” to a separate project for six Netra Mark-1A on Emb-145 jets, with more advanced technologies than the first three Mark-1 aircraft.
On the Tejas front, IAF till now has got only 38 of the first 40 Tejas Mark-1 fighters ordered for Rs 8,802 crore under two contracts inked in 2006 and 2010.
The almost two-year delay in delivery of 99 GE-404 engines by US firm General Electric, which HAL contracted for Rs 5,375 crore in Aug 2021, as well as weapons and radar integration issues are the main reasons for the delay in the Tejas Mark-1A fighters.
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