Curbing profligacy in materiel acquisitions a challenge

THE multiplicity of platforms employed by India’s military poses a massive, hugely expensive and complex logistical challenge, one that increasingly consumes the armed forces’ annual revenue budget, which has consequently grown steadily in recent years.

Unlike other analogous militaries that have greater homogeneity and commonality in their assets, India’s three services remain profligate in their choice of haphazardly acquired assorted weaponry, with scant effort at standardising equipment to effect savings on sustainment. Instead, all their diverse gear not only trigger mounting revenue allocations each year but, worse, lead to platform cannibalisation in which components or sub-assembles are removed from an active, in-service resource and installed on another, rendering the former inoperative.

Furthermore, this burgeoning equipment array also mandated the training and sustaining of a vast number of technicians and mechanics to service and maintain it for its average operational lifespan of around 25-30 years. A cross-section of service personnel, veterans and defence analysts concurred that if the military streamlined its kit profile, its yearly capital budget allocation, which averaged around 40 per cent of the overall defence outlay, could see an upsurge, augmenting thereby force modernisation and enhancing operational efficiency.

From 2021-22 to 2023-24, the ‘stores’ allocation that pertains to equipment spares, components and replacements for the Army has risen from Rs 20,383 crore to Rs 23,965 crore, for the Navy from Rs 6,054 crore to Rs 9,221 crore and for the Indian Air Force (IAF) from Rs 9,679 crore to a whopping Rs 17,200 crore.

The IAF, for instance, operates seven fighter types, including Russian Sukhoi Su-30 MKIs, upgraded MiG-29M and MiG-21 Bisons, French Rafales and Mirage-2000Hs, Anglo-French SEPECAT Jaguars and the indigenous Tejas Light Combat Aircraft. It also plans to acquire 114 multi-role fighter aircraft (MRFA), which could add yet another combat-type aircraft to the IAF’s existing portfolio.

Similarly, the IAF’s six transports comprise Russian and Ukrainian Ilyushin Il-76s and Antonov An-32s, C-17s and C-130J-30s from the US, legacy Avro HS-748s from the UK and licence-built Dornier 228s from Germany. Moreover, the induction of 56 Airbus Defence and Space C-295MW transporters, of which 16 are being acquired in flyaway condition and the remaining 40 licence-built locally, was imminent, making it the IAFs seventh such aircraft.

The forces’ helicopter fleet incorporates seven platforms including AH-64 Apaches and CH-47 Chinooks (US), Mil Mi-17 variants and Mi-24s (Russia), indigenous Dhruv advanced light helicopter variants and licence-made French-origin Aerospatiale Alouette IIIs (Chetaks) and Aerospatiale SA-315B (Cheetahs).

The Army’s jumbled equipment buys are set to render it possibly the world’s only army which could, over the next decade, field five main battle tank (MBT) types simultaneously. At present, it operates Russian T72M1 ‘Ajeyas and T90S ‘Bhishmas, alongside indigenous Arjun Mk1/1As, but is also on track to develop Zorawar, a 25-tonne tank, in addition to procuring 1,770 Future Ready Combat Vehicles by 2030.

The US, in comparison, operates M1 Abrams variant MBTs, while Israel fields the Merkava, Britain the Challenger 2, Canada the Leopard 2A6M, Germany the Leopard and France the Leclercs. Conversely, the Russian army has T72, T80 and T90 MBTs — all with a high degree of commonality — and has only recently begun inducting the T-14 Armata, predicated on a multi-faceted Universal Combat Platform concept.

Additionally, the Army’s seven artillery guns include M777s (UK/US), FH-77Bs (Sweden), local Dhanush howitzers, Soviet-era 130mm M46’s and the indigenously upgraded Sharang M-46s, domestically sourced 105mm field guns and more recently the K-9 Vajra self-propelled howitzers, built jointly in India by Larsen & Toubro and South Korea’s Hanwha Defence. The Army is also in the process of acquiring the domestically designed and manufactured 155mm/52 calibre Advanced Towed Artillery Gun System, besides evaluating the Israeli Autonomous Towed Howitzers Ordnance System for procurement.

The Army also deploys at least six helicopter types such as Apaches and Dhruv variants, including Prachand and Rudra attack models, indigenously designed light utility helicopters, Cheetahs and Chetaks. Its assault rifle profile encompasses TAR-21s and Galils from Israel, SIG716s from the US, AK-47s and AK-203s from Russia alongside the local Indian Small Arms System, in addition to six types of sniper rifles from Russia, Israel, Germany, Italy/Finland and the US. Four anti-material rifle types, at least five different kinds of machine guns/pistols from Belgium, Germany, Israel, Switzerland and the US and three models of air defence guns from Soviet Union/Russia and Sweden, among other varied equipment, all of which need servicing and back-up.

The Navy, relatively frugal among India’s three services in its equipment profile, deploys two diverse aircraft carriers and three dissimilar conventional diesel-electric submarines or SSKs: Russian Type 877 EKM Kilo-class boats, German HDW Type 209/1500 Shishumar-class SSKs and French Kalvari-class (Scorpene) platforms. Remarkably, the Navy is evaluating yet another SSK — to be sourced locally under transfer of technology to a local shortlisted shipyard from Germany or Spain — which is scheduled to join service in the early 2030s, making it the fourth submarine model in the forces’ growing platform stock list.

The fundamental flaw lies in defence planning, despite the embarrassment of riches of high-powered oversight decision-making bodies created to sustain India’s higher strategic and military realms. The remit of the Defence Planning Committee (DPC), set up in 2018 and headed by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, is the ‘overarching’ body to manage the country’s security strategy, prepare military capability plans and fast-track and rationalise materiel acquisitions.

DPC members include the Chief of Defence Staff, the three service chiefs and the defence and foreign secretaries. But so far, they all collectively appear unperturbed — or perhaps unwilling — to trigger platform and equipment streamlining and reorganisation, and are simply content to maintain the status quo.