MODERNISATION AND INDIGENOUS CAPABILITY
“LINKS OF A STRONG CHAIN”
The third Indian built Leander class frigate INS Udaygiri was despatched on a 14 nation cruise enroute to the Queen’s Coronation Fleet review, at Spit Head (UK), in 1977. As is the practise among many navies of the world, the ship was thrown open to visitors. Hundreds came on board in all the European ports to see an indigenously built frigate of the Indian Navy. It is said that a warship is a mirror of the technological and industrial capability of a country. It is a floating city with power generation facility often, enough to provide electricity to a whole township and all other essential features to house, feed the crew and fight a modern adversary. That the visitors were suitably impressed with what Mazagaon Docks had achieved in this very first venture was obvious from the glowing tributes in the media.
As young officers, who were fortunate to be a part of the commissioning crew, it was a rewarding experience and raised our expectations of what was to follow in the decades ahead. Indeed some of us held planning assignments as we grew. The navy had taken a conscious decision as early as in 1954, to create an in house cadre of naval architects to design and build warships for the navy. This single step provided the necessary impetus to our planners to confidently conceive a modern Fleet and even aim for an indigenous Carrier capability.
So, how have our efforts to modernise, matched our vision of a balanced force to counter challenges posed by the entire spectrum of maritime warfare? No navy of any calibre can plan without the ability to indigenise. The Indian navy had to contend with many limitations while planning a balanced force structure. Resource limitation was the first. The often unpredictable defence budget had a disproportionately small percentage allotted to the navy( from less than 10% to 17 % in recent years. The navy needs 20% of the pie to grow on a sustained basis). The man power intensive Army coupled with our paranoia related to continental threats ensured that the share of the navy in the limited defence budgets of the 1970s and 80’s remained woefully inadequate for any worthwhile planning. For more than a decade, orders for ships to offset the depleted force levels were just not placed. Submarine construction of German design with contemporary technology was terminated due to extraneous considerations. Our reliance on Soviet industries grew perilously, until the disintegration of the Soviet Union and with that the collapse of the supply chain so critical for war ship building, created a new challenge.
The Navy learnt to innovate. While planning and structuring the future navy was within its charter, the execution of the plans after necessary approvals, was totally a MOD function. The ‘attached office’ status of service headquarters within the MOD denied the participation of professional naval officers in the decision making processes of the Govt. Under these circumstances, the Navy opted to maintain a healthy ratio between its revenue budget and its capital element. Nearly 50% of its meagre budget was put away for capital commitments of ship building and infrastructure creation. Hence began a sustained campaign to tighten our belts by keeping man power induction to the very minimum and placing heavy limitations on the use of the revenue element of the budget. Thus the most critical period of financial crisis was weathered before the post liberalisation/globalisation phase began to show positive signs in the GDP growth of India. With the sustained growth of GDP, Defence budgets were restructured and the navy’s share began to register an upward trend. The ships under construction in Defence PSU’s began to roll out.
From the Leanders to the Shivaliks and soon to the indigenous Carrier being built at Kochi, is a journey filled with uncertainties, systemic infirmities , delays in DRDO projects, infrastructure inadequacies of our yards, serious time and cost over runs in production and policy flip flops in subsidies for the ship building industry as a whole.
Despite the short comings listed above, the navy has consistently pushed for a combination of war ship construction at home and abroad so as to maintain a balance between depleting force levels and combat effectiveness..
Could we have jumped many of these steps by an integrated approach to addressing issues that plague the ship building industry as a whole? Economic stability of the country is a precursor to many of the reforms that need urgent attention. While the navy has made progress in ship building and weapon-sensor development and integration, some critical weapons are still to be designed and produced in India. All the missiles and critical weapon systems are still imported. R&D in frontier and cutting edge technologies is very inadequate. While countries working with alliance partners can afford to share the burden of R&D and hope to achieve economy in scales due to volumes thus generated, India has very little scope to generate such volumes unless an export option is made viable. The Brahmos missile, a joint venture between Russia and India appears to be showing some potential in this direction. The Chinese cut the development cycle by reverse engineering and mass producing Russian weapons and sensors consequent to the breakup of the Soviet Union. Russian scientists of high calibre were found peddling their high grade design and research material on the streets and offering to work in countries which could accept them. That China made full use of this opportunity is evident from the war ship characteristics on display today. Joint venture with strategic partners is one way of cutting development cycles and costs.
Shifting focus to ship building, exploring modern building techniques providing subsidies to the industry, adopting PPP and JV models through integrated approach between Ministry of Defence (MOD) and Ministry of Shipping (MOS), creating a larger pool of naval architects, reducing time and cost over runs and finally making the best use of the new off set policy for defence procurement (Estimated at US$ 1 Billion for the navy alone) are some of the measures under consideration. The private sector understandably will continue to show disinterest if volumes remain unattractive and export options are not relaxed.
30 months is taken to produce a frigate in the west, it takes 72 months in India with a cost overrun of 300 %-a luxury we can no longer afford. And yet fault lines apart, the Navy can legitimately take pride in the quality of ships built over the years. Modern features such as stealth, integration of propulsion packages, improvements in Heat, ventilation and Air-conditioning (HVAC) are being incorporated in new designs for ships and submarines- both conventional and nuclear. A whole new range of ships from Patrol boats to Aircraft Carriers are now built in India. Entrepreneurs and small enterprises have benefitted as much as those who sail in them.
