Deesa airbase set to provide impetus to air force’s war-fighting capabilities
THE AIR BASE WILL BE THE FIREWALL BETWEEN ENEMY AIRCRAFT TAKING OFF FROM MIRPUR KHAS, SHAHBAZ F-16 AIRBASE IN JACOBABAD IN PAK
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday laid the foundation stone for Indian Air Force (IAF)’S new airbase at Deesa in Banaskantha district of Gujarat and described it as an effective centre of India’s security.
He said the Deesa air base, mere 130 kilometers from the Indo-pak border, will be able to give a better response to any threat coming from the western side.
Although the land for Deesa airbase was allotted and in-principle approval given to IAF by the Vajpayee government way back in 2000, the project was put on the back burner by the UPA government for the next 14 years.
The project was revived when
Narendra Modi took over as Prime Minister, but it was the 2017 floods in the Banaskantha region that really kick-started the project.
When PM Modi and then Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asked IAF to provide flood relief, Air Headquarters then headed by Air Chief Marshal B S Dhanoa found it very difficult to provide a relief air bridge to the affected area due to bad weather and no nearby airfield.
It was then Sitharaman who got the airbase approved by the government along with the ₹1,000 crore funding required for it.
Work has now begun and IAF will have a new forward base in the next two years with air defence fighter aircraft in position.
While PM Modi said the Deesa airbase will provide faster offensive capability to the IAF in this sector, the new airfield will also plug a crucial tactical gap between forward air bases at Naliya and Bhuj in Gujarat, and Phalodi in Rajasthan, experts said.
The Deesa air base will be the firewall between enemy aircraft taking off from Mirpur Khas, Hyderabad, and Shahbaz F-16 airbase in Jacobabad in Pakistan and Gujarat’s more than a trillion dollar industrial complex in and around Ahmedabad, Bhavnagar and Vadodara. Deesa will also make Pakistani cities of Hyderabad, Karachi and Sukkur vulnerable.
HT learns that since Deesa is a forward airbase, IAF has no intentions of deploying frontline Rafale or Su-30 MKI fighters on this airfield.
Instead, it will station air defence fighters such as MIG-29 and Tejas so that enemy fighters are intercepted.
With Deesa airbase expected to be operational in the next two years in 2024, the Pakistan air force is also expected to ramp up its air assets in the sector as Indian fighters can cross over the international border in mere two minutes at Mach 2.0 speed if the red flag goes up.