FRAUD ON THE NATION?

[Mister X]

FRAUD ON THE NATION?

by Ajai Shukla
Business Standard, 4th Feb, 2010

On August 24 last year, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) dressed up failure as achievement when — almost nine years after India bought the T-90 tank from Russia — the first 10 built-in-India T-90s were ceremonially rolled out of the Heavy Vehicles Factory (HVF) near Chennai.

No reasons were given for that delay. Nor did the Ministry of Defence (MoD) reveal the T-90’s ballooning cost, now a whopping Rs 17.5 crore. On November 30, 2006, the MoD told the Lok Sabha that the T-90 tank cost Rs 12 crore apiece. Parliament does not yet know about the 50 per cent rise in cost.

The story of the T-90 has been coloured by deception and obfuscation from even before the tank was procured. Business Standard has pieced together, from internal documents and multiple interviews with MoD sources, an account of how the Indian Army has saddled itself with an underperforming, yet overpriced, version of the Russian T-90.

The deception stemmed from the army’s determination to push through the T-90 contract despite vocal opposition from sections of Parliament. Former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda argued — allegedly because a close associate had a commercial interest in continuing with T-72 production — that fitting the T-72 with modern fire control systems and night vision devices would be cheaper than buying the T-90. Deve Gowda correctly pointed out that even Russia’s army had spurned the T-90.

To bypass his opposition, the MoD and the army reached an understanding with Rosvoorouzhenie, Russia’s arms export agency. The T-90 would be priced only marginally higher than the T-72 by removing key T-90 systems; India would procure those through supplementary contracts after the T-90 entered service. Excluded from India’s T-90s was the Shtora active protection system, which protects the T-90 from incoming enemy missiles. This was done knowing well that Pakistan’s anti-tank defences are based heavily on missiles.

Other important systems were also pared. The MoD opted to buy reduced numbers of the INVAR missile, which the T-90 fires. Maintenance vehicles, which are vital to keep the T-90s running, were not included in the contract. All this allowed the government to declare before Parliament that the Russian T-90s cost just Rs 11 crore, while the assembled-in-India T-90s were Rs 12 crore apiece.

The MoD did not mention that these prices would rise when the supplementary contracts were negotiated. Nor did it reveal that India’s pared-down T-90s barely matched the performance of the Pakistan Army’s recently acquired T-80 UD tank, which India had cited as the threat that demanded the T-90.

Worse was to follow when the initial batch of 310 T-90s entered service (124 bought off-the-shelf and 186 as knocked-down kits). It quickly became evident — and that too during Operation Parakram, with India poised for battle against Pakistan — that the T-90s were not battleworthy. The T-90’s thermal imaging (TI) sights, through which the tank aims its 125mm gun, proved unable to function in Indian summer temperatures. And, the INVAR missiles assembled in India simply didn’t work. Since nobody knew why, they were sent back to Russia.

Even more alarmingly, the army discovered that the T-90 sighting systems could not fire Indian tank ammunition, which was falling short of the targets. So, even as a panicked MoD appealed to the DRDO and other research institutions to re-orient the T-90’s fire control computer for firing Indian ammunition, Russian ammunition was bought.

With Russia playing hardball, none of the supplementary contracts have yet gone through. The TI sights remain a problem. The army has decided to fit each T-90 with an Environment Control System, to cool the delicate electronics with a stream of chilled air. None of the world’s current tanks, other than France’s LeClerc, has such a system. The American Abrams and the British Challenger tanks fought in the Iraq desert without air-conditioning. India’s Arjun tank, too, has “hardened” electronics that function perfectly even in the Rajasthan summer.

Nor has the MoD managed to procure the Shtora anti-missile system. The Directorate General of Mechanised Forces now plans to equip India’s eventual 1,657-tank T-90 fleet with the advanced ARENA active protection system, for which it has budgeted Rs 2,500 crore in the Army Acquisition Plan for 2009-11.

The greatest concern arose when Russia held back on its contractual obligation to transfer the technology needed to build 1,000 T-90s in India. But, instead of pressuring Russia, the MoD rewarded it in 2007 with a contract for 347 more T-90s. In an astonishing Catch-22, the MoD argued that the new purchase was needed because indigenous production had not begun.

Next month, when the T-90 is measured against the Arjun in comparative trials, the T-90s’ drawbacks will not be evident. But, as officers who have operated the T-90 admit, these could be crucial handicaps in battle.

“It is for these reasons that I have consistently argued for supporting the Indian Arjun tank,” says General Shankar Roy Chowdhury, former army chief and himself a tankman. “Another country can hold India hostage in many ways. We need to place an order for several hundred Arjun tanks so that economies of scale can kick in and we can bring down the price even further.”

If the Arjun performs strongly in next month’s comparative trials around Suratgarh and Pokhran, that order could be in the offing.

FRAUD ON THE NATION?

* Key operational systems were kept out to bring the price down
* Parliament wasn’t told about this, nor of the plan for supplementary contracts
* The performance on the ground showed that the T-90 was an appalling mistake
* This has set in train even more costly cover-ups
* All this, while the indigenous Arjun is free of many of these minuses.

 

[Mister X]

A plan for Arjun

Just a few clarifications to put my recent three-article series on Indian tanks in context.

1. I think that the conclusion that some visitors are drawing --- that everything Russian is bad --- amounts to overreaction to my articles. As one critic of the articles correctly posted, Russia has provided us systems that nobody else was willing to provide at prices that nobody else could match. Even if that was in the past, and Russia today adopts a far more hard-nosed, where-are-the-dollars approach towards arms sales to India, one would be ill-advised to forget history.

For example, one visitor posted about my article: “Did you read the parts that establish that the T-90 is at worst a piece of junk, or at best as good/bad as the obsolete T-72?” Well, I’d just point out that you are reading more into my account of the T-90 deal than I actually said. I certainly said that the deal was tailored to bypass parliamentary opposition, India ended up getting an under-equipped T-90 tank, important tank systems failed because they could not withstand exposure to the Indian environment, there were problems in transferring technology, and we have not yet managed to get the tank upgraded to the level that it should have been acquired in.

All that is true, yes! But also remember that, compared to the T-72, the T-90 is a much better tank. And, whether you like it or not, the T-90 will be in service with the Indian Army till at least 2040, maybe even 2050.

2. I also think that anyone who argues: scrap all Russian equipment and go Indian is fantasizing. Russian equipment is still the mainstay of our mechanised forces and, even if we adopt a conscious policy of Indianisation, it will be decades before Russian equipment serves out its life. Since we have to live with Russian systems for a long, long time, we need to identify which tanks we could phase out first, in what time frame we could retire them, and what we can upgrade and retain in service for a longer period.

3. A crucial step, in my opinion, will have to be doubling the rate of retirement of the obsolescent T-72s. One replacement stream is the T-90, being produced at the HVF, Avadi. A second stream of Arjuns must supplement this, for which the following broad process must begin:

(a) Increase Arjun tank production on an expanded assembly line, at the rate of 30, 40, and then 50 tanks per year in 2011, 2012 and 2013 respectively. Task CVRDE to ready the Arjun Mark II by 2013. By 2015 the Arjun production line at HVF MUST roll out 62 Arjun Mark II tanks per year (i.e. one regiment at full scale, including reserve tanks). By 2018, the Arjun Mark III must roll out. Each of these upgrades must have limited and realistic improvements, identified not from glossy magazines but through operational usage by Indian Army regiments.

(b) Alongside the Arjun Improvement Programme (AIP), which will handle the upgrade to Mark II and Mark III standards, work must commence by 2012 on the Future MBT programme. Two consortiums must compete in creating the design: a CVRDE-led consortium that can draw on the Arjun experience. And a private industry-led consortium, which is granted full access to the Arjun design experience, as well as to any other resources that they choose. The private industry consortium must be fully funded by the MoD, their budget in line with what the CVRDE-led consortium is permitted to spend.

(c) As Arjun tanks roll out, T-72M regiments must convert to the Arjun, those with older tanks first. The conversion will serve a two-fold purpose: firstly, the T-72 regiments that first convert to Arjuns, i.e. 4-5 regiments by 2015, need not be upgraded with TIFCS, etc. Secondly, the introduction of Arjuns into service, and the setting up of Arjun instructional cells at the Armoured Corps Centre & School, Ahmednagar, will start spreading an Arjun culture into an army where the opposition to the Arjun is based on an outdated impression of the tank --- on what it was, rather than what it is.

(d) The remaining T-72s need to be upgraded on priority. The ten-year-old process to upgrade them needs to be pushed through, if necessary by a high-voltage, public resignation by whoever the DGMF happens to be. By doing so, that officer will have done more for his arm than any of his recent predecessors; and will be remembered for much more than just “being a good chap”.

(e) By 2015, the DRDO, in collaboration with private industry, must produce and operationalise an Arjun Bridge Layer Tank (BLTs), an Arjun Trawl Tank, and the specialised maintenance vehicles that will be provided to each Arjun regiment. Production lines must cater for adequate scales of these.

(f) The process needs to be set in motion now for creating two Arjun overhaul facilities in the private sector. The first fifteen Arjuns will soon be due for overhaul and the HVF has proved unable to even handle the T-72 overhaul. Just as an RFI has been floated for creating T-72 overhaul facilities, the Arjun overhaul facilities must be kicked off immediately.