M A I N   N E W S

AJT deal with UK firmed up
Rajeev Sharma and Gaurav Choudhury
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 24
Defence Minister George Fernandes announced in the Lok Sabha today that the government had “finalised the last action” on acquiring Advanced Jet Trainers (AJTs) for the Indian Air Force. It is the second time in 10 days when India has ruffled feathers of the USA.

Mr Fernandes’ response virtually closed the door for negotiations on the AJTs by the USA as the Minister clearly indicated that the Vajpayee government was going to purchase the Hawks AJTs from Britain.

The decision to procure AJTs had been hanging fire for more than 15 years and scores of MiG 21 aircraft and pilots had been lost in the absence of a trainer aircraft which could facilitate easy progression from sub-sonic to super-sonic aircraft.

“The AJT proposal is now before the Cabinet Secretariat. The last action on part of the Ministry (of Defence) has been finalised,” Mr Fernandes said during question hour.

He informed the House that the government had asked “certain questions” from the British Government pertaining to the AJTs and was awaiting the answer. In response to a question by Mr Omar Abdullah (National Conference), Mr Fernandes said: “If the reply comes today, then we will start our action tomorrow. If it comes during this week, we will start the process next week.”

The Minister’s announcement in the House today, a U turn from his recently stated position that the entire procedure (for procurement of AJTs) was off, marked a second setback for the USA at the hands of the Vajpayee government. On July 14, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) had rejected Washington’s request for sending Indian troops to Iraq.

The Bush administration had, of late, started showing keen interest in selling to India the Czech-American AJTs Aero L 159B, manufactured by Aero-Vodochody.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell had, sometime back, written a letter to the Indian Government, guaranteeing among other things, license to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for producing US components for L 159B AJTs.

The minister said in a written statement that various options for procurement of AJTs had been under examination and ‘no contract has been finalised as yet’.

Mr Fernandes said that the government was keen on finalisation of the issue and had taken necessary steps in this direction in accordance with the procurement procedures. He, however, said it would not be possible to lay down time limit for ‘such a major procurement project’.

In the absence of AJTs the IAF has had 229 accidents/crashes, involving mainly MiG series aircraft. Of these 101 were due to human errors, 95 due to technical defects, 20 triggered by bird hits and 13 caused by bird hits.

Keeping operational requirements in mind, the Air Force Headquarters had made a desk survey in 1985 of a number of AJTs then available in the world market.

Request for proposals (RFPs) for AJTs was issued on three occasions in 1986, 1992 and finally in 1999 to the two short-listed vendors — M/S British Aerospace (BAE) for the Hawk aircraft and M/S Dassault Aviation for the Alpha Jet aircraft, Mr Fernandes added.

Mr Fernandes made another important announcement in the Lok Sabha when he said that he would be conducting a sortie on a MiG 21, often ridiculed as a ‘flying coffin’.