Introduction:

Indian Airforce chief recently said that India has 31 squadrons (each squadron has 21 aircrafts) against sanctioned strength of 42. By providing the Rafale and S-400 aircraft, the government is strengthening the Indian Air Force to counter the shortfall of our depleting numbers of aircraft. A US think tank remarked that the IAF’s likelihood of reaching its 2027 goal with a high proportion of advanced fighters is poor.

Body:

The Air Force has only itself to blame for this state of affairs. Its philosophy has been to go for the best, instead of the most economical solution. So now we are stuck with a situation that it may have priced itself out, in the reckoning of the government.

The issues being faced by IAF with respect to maintaining numerical adequacy are:

• Even if the Air Force gets the sanctioned 42 squadrons, India’s strength would be “less than the combined strength of our two adversaries.
• IAF fleet strength has been plagued by poor decision-making, poor acquisition strategy and shoddy quality control and contract delivery.
• It is stymied by serious constraints on India’s defence budget, the meagre achievements of the country’s domestic development organisations and India’s inability to reconcile the need for self-sufficiency in defence production with the necessity of maintaining technological superiority over rivals
• The IAF had also ordered 43 Tejas jet fighters with another 83 planned for the Mark 1A version. However, though there is a value in procuring them to encourage domestic R&D, these aircraft are simply not capable of combat flying. The present version of the Tejas is an excellent aircraft as a Lead-in fighter trainer (LIFT), but the IAF doesn’t set much store by this concept, unlike most advanced air forces.
• For example it has yet to get 25 Su-30MKI that were to be delivered by 2017 by HAL. Upgrades, such as that of 47 Mirage 2000s have also been delayed. Likewise none of the 61 Jaguars which were to have been upgraded have yet joined service.
• The LCA, is, of course, a story of its own marked by delays and performance problems. In addition, in the last 10 years, the Air Force has 90 combat aircraft have crashed.
• C&AG’s Audit Report of2019 on ‘Capital Acquisition in Indian Air Force’ revealed the following findings:
  • Volume I consisting of seven chapters discusses the systematic issues in the acquisition process. It includes details of ten acquisition contracts.
  • Volume-II consists of audit findings relating to the acquisition of Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft through an Inter Government Agreement (IGA) with the Government of France. This includes examination of the pricing.
  • To acquire the right product at the right price, it is essential that the qualitative requirements (Air Staff Qualitative Requirements in the IAF-ASQRs) truly reflect the users functional need. This helps in generation of maximum possible competition and technical and price evaluation is done objectively.
  • Audit noted that IAF did not define the ASQRs properly. As a result none of the vendors could fully meet the ASQRs. ASQRs were changed repeatedly during the procurement process.
  • Audit noted that the vendor response to solicitation of offers was low, which restricted competition. Number of vendors who responded to the Request For Proposal (RFP) was far less than the number of vendors who were invited to bid.
  • Defence Ministry faced difficulties in realistically estimating the Benchmark price, making it difficult to establish the reasonability of price. This also caused delay in price evaluation and contract negotiations.
  • There were severe delays at various stages of the acquisition process. Against three years envisaged in Defence Procurement Process, four cases took more than three years and seven cases took more than five years to reach the contract conclusion stage.
  • Delays in acquisition were essentially due to a complex and multi-level approval process, where objections could be raised at any stage.

Way forward:

• Ministry needs to revisit the entire process of acquisition, to weed out redundant activities and simplify the process.
• The acquisition wing, headed by the DG (Acquisition) was envisaged as an integrated defence organization.
• For procuring highly technical products use of the Best Value method or a quantitative assessment method may ensure better value for money.
• Audit is of the view that the present ‘Lowest Price TechnicallyAcceptable (LPTA)’ method of bid evaluation wherein the contract is awarded to the lowest priced offer which is technically acceptable, needs reconsideration.
• IAF should improve its process of formulation of ASQRs to ensure that they correctly reflect the users functional parameters.

Conclusion:

The Indian defence system needs to have a deep look at the projected requirements of 42 squadrons which arise out of the government’s political directive of taking on China and Pakistan simultaneously. The IAF’s desire for 42-45 squadrons by 2027 — some 750-800 aircraft — is compelling, if India is to preserve the airpower superiority it has enjoyed in southern Asia since 1971.