A combination of the ‘Make in India’ initiative and AgustaWestland chopper scam have effectively stalled the services efforts to procure new helicopters to replace the ageing Cheetah and Chetaks in service.
While the Indian Air Force (IAF) inducted several medium lift choppers and signed deals for attack and heavy lift variants, along with the Army it is awaiting new utility helicopters to support its troops in far flung areas. The Navy is the worst hit with procurements struck in all categories and practically one helicopter being shared by several frontline warships.
“Once the government announced the ‘Make in India’ initiative the programs that were in the loop were retracted to process them through the new route in partnership with Indian industry. But policy clarity is still awaited and allegations of corruption have further slowed down things,” a senior officer said.
The Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 which came into force in April promises a level playing field and boost domestic manufacturing but is still without crucial chapters on strategic partnerships and blacklisting norms in case of wrongdoing. There are also added dimension of capacity building and disaster relief support in the neighbourhood.
“Of late with frequent involvement in Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) missions the need for helicopters has further gone up as they are the only platforms which can land in affected areas,” another officer observed.
Obsolete Chetaks, Kamovs
There are 139 ships in the Navy of which barring about 30-40 ships the rest can carry 1-2 helicopters. The two aircraft carriers INS Viraaat and INS Vikramaditya are capable of carrying 12 helicopters each in various roles.
In contrast the Navy has about 40 obsolete Chetaks, 24 Kamov 28/31s which are now being upgraded, 10 Dhruvs and some Sea Kings. Except the 10 Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter all others vintage and are in urgent of replacement.
“Helicopters are crucial in supporting ships or responding to distress calls on the high seas. But currently the numbers are so less that several ships are sharing a helicopter,” one Navy officer said.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence in one of the reports tabled in the last session noted that the Navy requires aircraft and helicopters as these are critical for surveillance and Stand-off targeting at sea. “Further, the Committee have been informed by the representatives of Indian Navy that the force is short of 61 integral helicopters on existing ships,” the report stated.
Several procurement processes under various categories of helicopters, Naval utility, Multi-Role, Naval Multi-Role (NMRH), are all stuck due to re tendering or for clarity in DPP on blacklisting norms.
For instance, price negotiations for 16 MRH with Sikorsky were stuck initially due to difference in base pricing and later the company was taken over by Lockheed Martin which has further complicated things.
Officials said that this deal will also guide the process for procurement of the much larger deal 126 NMRH.
The tender for over 100 NUH has just been reissued but the shadow of AgustaWestaland lingers on it threatening it once again.
Even if the process is accelerated several officials questioned the time taken for the domestic industry to get a hang of the complex manufacturing and scale up production to meet the requirement. The Indian military is projected have a requirement for over 1,000 helicopters of various types in the next 10-15 years.
Utility helicopters
For the Army and IAF is light utility helicopters which are used in varied roles like supporting troops in forward areas, search & rescue, reconnaissance among others.
For instance the Standing Committee observed that in the IAF the “life span of some of these helicopters is based ‘on condition’. Generally it varies from 5000 to 18000 hours and the period from 15 to 35 years.”
In fact the standing committee taking note of the life extension aircraft and helicopters had observed: “It is strongly recommend that no aircraft which has completed its operational life is in use with the IAF, otherwise such lapses would lead to accidents.”
Together they have a requirement for over 380 light utility helicopters which kept repeatedly delayed. “The case for procurement of helicopters to replace the ageing Chetak/Cheetah fleet has been foreclosed thrice, the standing committee recently noted.
In view of the urgency in May 2015 the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) approved procurement of 200 Kamiv-226T utility helicopters from Russia, 60 to be procured in fly away condition and 140 to be produced in India. An intergovernmental agreement has already been signed and the commercial agreement betweenHindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and Russian Helicopters is expected to be concluded by year end.
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is developing a Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) to meet the balance requirements but the development has been delayed. As per plan, HAL intends to build four prototypes by 2017 and start production by 2018. The Army and Air Force together have committed to purchase 187 LUHs.
In December last year the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had pulled up the government for its failure to modernise the army's helicopter fleet which it said had resulted in the Army Aviation Corps (AAC) facing a 32 percent deficiency in its authorized fleet strength, while about 52 percent of the existing fleet is more than 30 years old.
“The effective availability of helicopters for operations gets further reduced to 40 percent of the authorisation due to low level of serviceability of the existing fleet,” CAG observed in its audit report.
