Delays Do No Good

Mihir Paul

The Indian Navy witnessed a slew of crucial developments regarding acquisitions that were fast-tracked by the ministry of defence (MoD) last year. While the procurement of MH-60R multi-role helicopters and the Naval Utility Helicopter (NUH) programme saw progress, the acquisition programme for the navy’s multi-role carrier-based fighters didn’t see much action besides the navy showing its continued support towards the LCA Naval programme with hopes that the future versions (Tejas Mk-2) would be operationally compatible with the upcoming ‘Make in India’ carriers.

US Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornet

To fulfil the requirement for multi-role carrier-based fighters (MRCBF) to serve aboard the upcoming ‘Make in India’ carriers, INS Vikrant and INS Vishal, in early January 2017, a Request for Information (RFI) was floated by the MoD for 57 MRCBF. This is the largest procurement of naval fighters in recent times through an open tender. At present, the Indian Navy has 45 such multi-role carrier-based MiG-29KUBs for operations for INS Vikramaditya and the under-construction INS Vikrant. The proposed procurement for the 57 MRCBFs came after almost 10 years when the Indian Navy had last acquired MiG-29Ks from Russia. The RFI followed from the news that LCA Tejas was no longer being considered for Indigenous Aircraft Carrier I (IAC I) since its first naval prototype (Tejas MkI) was too heavy, thus making this acquisition even more significant.

However, the procurement for new carrier-based fighters, like all major acquisitions till date, also has the potential to fall prey to technical and financial issues along with delays like in the MMRCA acquisition