Tejas: Take-off trouble

New Delhi, Feb. 5: The Indian Air Force has cited a resource crunch and is going slow on placing an order for the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) called Tejas despite repeated requests from the defence research establishment.

The Indian Air Force is now in the middle of a process to acquire 126 multi-role combat aircraft and with the LCA project limping, air headquarters is studying whether it should actually work to acquire more ? about 200 ? aircraft.

The LCA is just one of the Defence Research and Development Organisation’s (DRDO) projects that smacks, typically, of over-promise and under-delivery. But the research organisation’s chief, M. Natarajan, believes that no deadline can be set for its projects and that the sloth does not add to the tax-payers’ burden.

The DRDO that is developing the LCA jointly with the defence public sector Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has been waiting expectantly for the IAF order to infuse funds into the project and also to get a user’s assurance.

Though air headquarters has not said so in public, it is weighing whether it should commit funds because it is anticipating a resource crunch for the big ticket purchases of multi-role combat aircraft ? that could cost the exchequer more than $5 billion over 10 years ? and other equipment that it has projected as an immediate need.

Natarajan, who is also the scientific adviser to the defence minister, said during the CII-defence ministry organised Defexpo 2006 that concluded yesterday, that HAL would be given a production order for 20 LCA ? the aircraft was christened Tejas by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee ? only after the air force gets the approval for its funds.

Natarajan claimed the weapons integration process for the LCA has been completed.

The LCA was projected to replace the IAF’s ageing MiG 21 air defence fighter as the mainstay of its fighter fleet in a decade but slippages and disruptions delayed the project and upset perspective planning in defence headquarters.

One of the major causes of the slippages in production is the delay in the development of the Kaveri engine that was planned to power the aircraft. But the development of the Kaveri, already hit because of US sanctions (since lifted) that followed the 1998 nuclear tests, has run into more trouble with ground tests of the engine in Russia showing poor results.