AERO INDIA: LOCAL TAKEOFF

INDIGENISATION OF INDIAN DEFENCE AVIATION GETS A BIG PUSH

An international airshow with thousands of global visitors spending several days in close proximity would seem unlikely and possibly even controversial during a pandemic. The world’s two largest airshows—held in Farnborough, scheduled for July 2020, and in Paris, due in June 2021—were cancelled. Possibly the biggest achievement, then, of Aero India, the biennial Bengaluru airshow, Asia’s largest, was the fact that it was held as a physical event. However, attendance was less than half of what earlier editions have seen, and the only flight displays and parked aircraft were those of the Indian Air Force. Yet it was a signal that India was open for business.

The other big achievement of Aero India was showcasing the government’s clear focus on the indigenisation of the defence aviation industry. Military aviation is the acme of the arms industry and enormously expensive. A single IAF Rafale fighter jet can cost as much as 20 T-90 tanks. Militaries operate a massive range of aircraft—trainer aircraft, fighters, tankers, various transport aircraft and helicopters. Nurturing an indigenous aviation ecosystem is time-consuming and needs huge investments of cost and attention. India has only begun to take baby steps in this direction.

As part of its ‘vocal for local’ pitch, the government placed a Rs 48,000 crore order for 83 LCA Tejas light combat aircraft for the IAF at the airshow— the single-largest contract for the Indian defence industry. The 123 LCAs (40 jets in a basic variant were ordered a decade ago) will replace an equal number of ageing MiG-21 Bison fighter aircraft that will be retired this decade.

India is the world’s second-largest importer of defence hardware and, between 2014 and 2019, accounted for 9.5 per cent of the world’s sales of weapons. Fighter jets and transport aircraft make up the costliest import component by value. The IAF, for instance, plans to acquire 110 multirole combat aircraft for close to $20 billion (Rs 1.4 lakh crore) and the Centre plans to spend around $130 billion (Rs 9.47 lakh crore) on military modernisation over the next five years. Achieving self-reliance in defence production is a key target for the government. Defence minister Rajnath Singh announced a plan to slash defence imports by $2 billion (Rs 14,564 crore) by the end of 2022 and also hoped to increase defence exports by $5 billion (Rs 36,410 crore) by 2025. There is also the ongoing military standoff with China in eastern Ladakh driving the need for top-of-the-line military hardware.

Waiting in the wings are a spate of indigenous orders that could help reduce imports and build military aviation muscle, including a Rs 3,000 crore order for 15 Light Combat Helicopters (LCH) for the IAF and an order estimated to be worth over Rs 7,000 crore for 106 HAL HTT-40 trainer aircraft, which are to be concluded soon. The government-owned HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd) is currently India’s prime aircraft-making contractor, but this monopoly could end soon when a Rs 15,000 crore order for a joint venture between European aviation major Airbus and Tata Advanced Systems for building 56 C-295 medium transport aircraft locally will create a parallel capability in the private sector.

“Aero India was the first major event after the launch of the Aatmanirbhar policy last May and it showed our commitment to self-sufficiency in defence in action,” says Raj Kumar, secretary (defence production). Over the past few months, the political and IAF brass have flown sorties in indigenous aircraft to endorse Indian designed and built helicopters and fighter jets. The change in focus driven by the political executive has brought together agencies that otherwise operate in silos. The LCA Tejas, for instance, was going nowhere in a three-legged race between the IAF, the DRDO’s Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and HAL. The LCA was, for the most part, an ADA project. The IAF, disappointed by development delays, looked for off-the-shelf imported fighter aircraft to replenish its depleted fighter squadrons—it has only 30 as against a sanctioned strength of 42. HAL, meanwhile, sought easier

NURTURING AN INDIGENOUS AVIATION ECOSYSTEM IS TIME-CONSUMING AND CALLS FOR HUGE INVESTMENTS OF COST AND ATTENTION