Restructuring ADA                                                                                    Prof. Prodyut Das

 

Very recently the Modi Government has broken up the Ordinance Factories Board (OFB). Heritage conservationists will no doubt be appalled for the organization was over two-hundred-year-old. It is not possible for the average person to follow all the details of the change and we will have to wait to see the result but perhaps a single example will illustrate the need to restructure or change the modus operandi.  The technical license for the 155/39 Bofors Howitzer was obtained in the 1980s. The Gun was one of the “war winners” of Kargil and yet throughout the Ancien Regime, the Army did not receive a single Bofors from the OFB factories. In the meantime, the requirement had changed to 155/52 ; perhaps the ploy was to go in for another license with its attendant kickbacks.

It is wrong to presume that the entire fault for the above sorry state of affairs was with the OFB but it does indicate that State controlled entities are particularly vulnerable to state controlled corruption or manipulation. The real problem is of course corruption and international relations. Corruption requires no further amplification; the “Socialist Pattern of Society” mindset that still pervades in the defence Industry encourages corruption and manipulation.

 Privatization will not make corruption go away but private sectors companies do not have "inexhaustible" funds to throw after bad projects and the projects are closely monitored. Opening up the Defence Industry to the Private sector ab initio i.e. from the publicly funded RFI stage will introduce competitiveness and will give all players, including the customer, a level playing field!

The other cause of failure of the PSUs relates to International Relations. The struggle to control the geo strategic Indian Peninsula by Great Britain and Imperial Russia was a well-known agenda of these two Powers being celebrated in Kipling’s “Kim” and as “the Great Game”. The Great Game continued after the collapse of Czarist Russia and it did not end with Indian Independence. We became if not a puppet, then definitely a client state of the Soviet Union.  Re-examining history would show that we followed policies, for whatever good reasons, that crippled our Industries. It is no coincidence that we could liberalize only after the Soviet Union weakened and collapsed.

 The arguments that the private sector did not have the capital or skills to set up the sophisticated Industries is a Leftist lie masquerading as a reason. The argument is belied by the very fact that it was the private sector entrepreneur, Lala Walchand Hirachand in 1940 that set up the first aircraft factory along with design capabilities and in the teeth of British colonial opposition which is why the factory came up in the princely state of Mysore. 

It is ironical that the Government of Free India whilst espousing Socialism continued with repressive colonial industrial policies. The Defence Industry Structure, as set up in the name of Socialism and protecting the rights of people, actually gave us a corruptible system that was particularly pliant to the “committed” bureaucracy which was then largely leftist in inspiration-one extremely trusted "Advisor" was a card carrying Comintern member during his Cambridge days. The result was that we slowly drifted into being a client state of the USSR and they would not have seen anything amiss in being in the Soviet Bloc. Indeed it is possible this section of the bureaucracy was instrumental in making the country dependent -to the tune of 85% on Soviet defence equipment.  

Corruption and financial mismanagement in the PSUs- the Tatra Scam for example, go unmentioned but how would our “socialists” have howled had the Tatas and the Birlas- the then equivalent of todays Adanis and Ambanis – taken the PDV of Rs 83,000 crores for the LCA programme and delivered twenty aircraft in forty years after accepting the first tranche. It would have been, vociferously and with veins bulging, called a scam.

With that as a background mention must be made of two interesting interviews related to the LCA project in November ‘21. One is a rather obsequious “interview” of the first Programme Director. The interview certifies that ADA’s performance vis a vis the Tejas programme has been entirely to ADA’s own satisfaction. This is in contrast to the other interview by the new Air Chief who made no mention at all of the place of the LCA Mk II in the future re-equipment plans of the IAF. Given the trail of unkept promises of the LCA project this lack of mention in an important speech has triggered much speculation since the specifications are close to what the Air Force is in the market for -one hundred and fourteen MMRCA aircraft. “Specifications” are in italics because what and when ADA will deliver is something perhaps the customer is wary of.

The Air Force’s view could be as follows: ADA has had an “order” for forty aircraft since 2003; about twenty have been delivered, which is about sufficient to equip one squadron. The aircraft have serviceability and design problems available figures returning an aircraft utilization of around 46 hours/aircraft/per year as compared to the 225 hrs. /aircraft/ year that is demanded from foreign vendors. The aircraft is overweight and lacks range. ADA’s unreliability as a vendor is making us scurry around for second hand airframes of M2K and MiG 29s. Now ADA has an additional order for 83 aircraft ; “let ADA get on with that and then the Air Force will see-we have had a basinful of technical hot air, and “pie in the sky” promises but now only “habeas corpus” please”.

Delays also seem to have happened not because the job was difficult or because we were doing it for the first time but sheer bad management of the technical part-"The Chief Designer" part of the programme. We did the job half cock and with  lack of supervision and guidance the first time- and so we had to do the job twice.

 A fixation with publicity seeking was also part of the problem. The “roll out” in 1995 reportedly set back the program by about a year because it the airframe had to be stripped and “rewired”. Then we had the "nautanki" of IOC 1, IOC2 ; we were spared IOC 2 1/2 ! One hears that Bharat Forge has done an excellent job in weight reduction but how did it that weight get on in the first place? Truth to tell We should have been where we are today in 2003! That would have been very satisfying to all concerned, including people like me!

The progress on the project with the “new” Government has been much better showing how vital the “financier’s” interest is in project execution. The order for 83 aircraft is an indication of the Government’s interest and commitment to support home grown weapons but the order actually calls the programme’s bluff.  ADA now has to deliver. The Government’s keenness brings pressure on the organizations and it is beginning to show. Possibly the recent “Balbo” of sixteen aircraft at Sulur and the interview alluded to above are not  random unconnected events but reactions to that pressure. Wags say that Covid 19 came as a breather to the LCA programme but what is the actual delivery in the remaining portion of 2021-2022 is going to be critically watched.

Eukarpos; Good Fruit

It is ancient wisdom -I think Mathew 2:17- that says " the tree that yields not good fruit must be hewn down and cast into the fires" -presumably to make room for something more productive. The ADA experiment has failed to do what it was set up to do. It was bureaucratic in origin and spirit and allegedly personal animosities was the seed of its creation. There is no problem in personal feeling ; it has often set up great things but equally it has often caused harm. ADA should have been a DARPA but it has simply inserted itself in the bureaucratic hierarchy and it cannibalized existing resources in aircraft and engine design capabilities almost to the point of  bleeding white - three hundred engineer were reportedly transferred out of HAL Aircraft Design Bureau which subsequently had to be painstakingly rebuilt and it is an indication of HAL's expertise that they went on to create the superb and serviceable ALH series. A ten years later starter than the LCA , now about two hundred wear the Indian roundels. and has put in 100,000 hrs plus of arduous service. Please don't tell me helicopters are subsonic and therefore easy to design. They require the same thoroughness and interest and can be  nasty with their challenges. As a foot note to this wanton vandalism of institutions at that time the prolific DGCA Technical Centre designing civil aeroplanes was also closed down. Similarly the Engine Division was emasculated but it apparently revived; fortunately we hope to have the HTFE 2500/4000 an engine ,in my view, at the right place at the right time!  A reprise of the HF 24 with this engine  exclusively for the export market could make the IAF sit up and take a look! 

ADA has failed in its first task of getting the Tejas into timely service . There was too much “politics” and “management” and “networking” and rather less of “engineering” in its psyche.  ADA has certainly built up an organization, It has built up a network (  that dutifully votes it funds ) but it certainly has NOT built up capability. The painfully slow modifications to the AMCA display models wrt to stealth's features and the "careless " location of the canard vis vis the intake of the Tejas Mk2 models  makes me have my doubts. Given the small size of the aircraft location the canard requires not technology but reflection and meditation and that is visibly missing in the models.  

 The visible result of ADA’s failure that the country is still uncertain about when it will get the aircraft, trouble free and in numbers. This has resulted in emergency purchases of further aircraft - precisely the situation that the project’s proponents had promised to eradicate. The present parlous state of the air force’s strength can directly be linked to the failure of the LCA programme to maintain or redeem any kind of promise about progress.

The Government must begin to rectify this “ senior , middleman and rival - all at once ” position and style of operation of ADA. It must be either be hyphenated with HAL as a PSU competitor or it must restructure as a DARPA , funding and monitoring programmes and with a substantial representation from the customers and the Industry leaders but keeping its fingers out from actual hardware design which it has proved it is incapable of doing to any agreed timescale. Interestingly and in our mindset impossibly, in DARPA the roster is retired out at the rate of 33% per year. The American view being if they are so damn good they can fend for themselves; longer stints may lead to "empire building". Is it any surprise that the American are at the top of the food chain in Aeronautics.

The process of encouraging the private sector to set up design bureaux so that they can participate ab initio in the process of combat aircraft development with Government funds has been long back pedalled by the beneficiaries of PSU led projects. That there is no corruption in the PSUs or Government Departments defies belief. Private sector leadership has to be accepted as inevitable and expedited. The full-fledged participation of the private sector in combat aircraft development by funding RFPs -why not for the AMCA or an alternate AMCA or a large strategic aircraft concept-etc is a long overdue step. The cost to the country in terms of time and money will be much cheaper.