NEW DELHI: With China steadily eroding India’s air combat advantage along the frontier by deploying a greater number of aircraft, the Indian Air Force chief on Friday said his force was also upgrading its forward airbases and advance landing grounds, while asking Hindustan Aeronautics Limited for faster delivery of indigenous Tejas fighters and the private sector to play a much bigger role in defence production.
IAF is far superior to the Chinese air force in terms of training of fighter pilots and “our people behind the machines” as well as operational tactics, but India “lags behind” China in military technology and “is way behind” in defence production. “We have to catch up with them,” Air Chief Marshal A P Singh said, speaking in the run-up to the IAF Day on Oct 8.
“We have done our analysis. We don’t have a design to go on an offensive unnecessarily. Only when we are pushed will we do something,” he said, adding that IAF has its operational plans in place to tackle any contingency.
Acknowledging that IAF was grappling with a depleting number of fighter squadrons, which is down to just 30 when 42 are authorized, ACM Singh added, “We are focusing on fighting with whatever we have… so training becomes very important. Should we be required to contest with somebody, we should be able to win.”
China has deployed additional jets, including its most advanced J-20 stealth fighters, as well as bombers, reconnaissance aircraft and drones at its airfields facing India like Hotan, Kashgar, Gargunsa, Shigatse, Bangda, Nyingchi and Hoping after upgrading them with new and extended runways, hardened shelters, fuel and ammunition storage facilities.
This somewhat offsets the terrain constraints China faces at its airbases due to high-altitude and rarefied air, which limits the weapon and fuel-carrying capacity of aircraft. Overall, China has more than four times the number of fighters, bombers and force-multipliers as compared to India.
ACM Singh said China is rapidly building infrastructure, but India too is constructing new airfields, which include the high-altitude Nyoma one in eastern Ladakh, and strengthening capacity of existing airbases to handle more aircraft.
Plans are also afoot to take over or use civil advance landing grounds (ALGs) in the middle sector (Uttarakhand, Himachal) of the 3,488-km Line of Actual Control (LAC), after upgrading ALGs in eastern Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh.
“It’s important for our manufacturing agencies to increase their production rate,” ACM Singh said. IAF would be able to plug its shortfalls if HAL sticks to its promise of stepping up its annual production rate to 24 Tejas fighters. “Private players also have to come in in a major way… We can’t rely on only one production agency,” he said.
IAF till now has got only 38 of the first 40 Mark-1 fighters ordered for Rs 8,802 crore under two contracts inked in 2006 and 2010. It is yet to get the first “improved” Tejas Mark-1A jet of the 83 contracted from HAL under the Rs 46,898 crore deal in Feb 2021. Another 97 Tejas Mark-1A fighters for Rs 67,000 crore are also going to be ordered soon.
Then, IAF plans to induct at least six squadrons (108 jets) of Tejas Mark-2, with a longer combat range and greater weapon-carrying capacity. In August 2022, the PM-led cabinet committee on security had cleared the over Rs 9,000 crore development cost for Tejas Mark-2 with more powerful GE-F414 engines, and the first test-flight is slated for October next year. “Timelines must be met,” ACM Singh added.