Failures in defence

No respite from indigenisation delays, maintenance woes

The Comptroller and Auditor General’s latest report on defence equipment raises fresh concerns about the two issues that have bedevilled India’s defence preparedness: the many slippages in indigenisation of defence hardware by government-owned establishments and the failure by the armed forces to maintain equipment properly. It is unconscionable that the Cochin Shipyard should now say that an aircraft carrier that it was to have readied by 2014 will not be fully decked out before 2023. This is of a piece with taking a decade to build a destroyer — which is the record of Mazagon Docks, while China seems to do it in half the time. Meanwhile, the nuclear submarine Arihant, launched into the water seven years ago, is still to be commissioned into the navy, though reports were put out months ago that all trials have been concluded. It becomes impossible to plan for the country’s defence if production units routinely take twice the committed time to build essential hardware. In this context, it is a matter of regret that the defence ministry’s drive to rope in private manufacturers has made little progress so far, despite many pronouncements.

The second problem that has been highlighted is poor use of the equipment provided to the forces. The navy’s recent record of accidents is embarrassing; and the defence minister is on record that only half the number of Sukhoi MK-30s, the air force’s mainstay, is operationally available at any given time. Mr Parrikar had vowed to improve that record to 75 per cent, but what success has been achieved is not known. It now turns out, if the CAG’s report is to be believed, that the MiG-29 fleet has usability levels that are even worse than those for the Sukhois, while the wasteful manner in which the C-17 heavy-lift freighter aircraft is being used reads like a tragicomedy. In both cases, the full equipment complement does not seem to have been acquired or maintained, affecting aircraft usability, while the quality and delivery schedules of Russian suppliers seem to be a recurring problem virtually across the board.

It is not known what progress there has been on other fronts - like reducing the time taken for negotiating and placing orders; the Rafale is the latest example of such delays, with no orders having been placed even four years after the aircraft was officially chosen for the air force, in preference to rival bids. As for the blacklisting of suppliers caught in pay-off scandals, the latest example of consequential damage is the failure to order torpedoes for six Scorpene submarines, the first of which is due for delivery to the navy later this year. If the navy gets an aircraft carrier without the equipment to launch aircraft, submarines without torpedoes, and destroyers without helicopters for anti-submarine operations, while the air force gets to use half or less of the aircraft in its fleet, many questions beg for answers.

Admittedly, building or buying defence equipment is a complicated business - and so it is not always possible to stick to time and cost stipulations. The technologies involved are complex, the defence business worldwide is prone to large-scale bribery, and Indian production units are learning on the job while trying for the first time to build aircraft carriers and nuclear carriers. But, even allowing for these factors, how does one explain the (reportedly) better aircraft serviceability and pilot training levels achieved by the Pakistan air force? And the better safety record of many other navies?