India’s first modern air defence system readying to roll off the assembly line. Bharat Electronics (BEL) in Bangalore, will deliver operational Akash missile system, to the IAF by March 2011. This first Akash squadron will protect the Gwalior Air Base, where the IAF bases its Mirage-2000 fighters.
BEL will follow this up quickly with a second Akash squadron by December 2011, which will safeguard Lohegaon Air Base at Pune, a major base for the front-line Sukhoi-30MKI fighters. Meanwhile, another defence public sector undertaking, Bharat Dynamics, will build six more Akash squadrons, most of these for the IAF’s new fighter bases along the Sino-Indian border, including Tezpur, Bagdogra and Hasimara.
BEL will follow this up quickly with a second Akash squadron by December 2011, which will safeguard Lohegaon Air Base at Pune, a major base for the front-line Sukhoi-30MKI fighters. Meanwhile, another defence public sector undertaking, Bharat Dynamics, will build six more Akash squadrons, most of these for the IAF’s new fighter bases along the Sino-Indian border, including Tezpur, Bagdogra and Hasimara.
“BEL is building two Akash squadrons for Rs 1,221 crore,” says Ashwini Datta, BEL’s chairman and managing director. “The ground infrastructure would cost another Rs 200 crore, so each squadron effectively costs about Rs 700 crore. That is not just significantly cheaper than foreign procurement, but also permits better maintenance and allows for continuous technological improvements.”
DRDO and MoD sources say the Indian Army is close to ordering a high-mobility version of Akash, mounted on T-72 tanks, that can move alongside tank forces. One of the army’s three strike corps, which attack deep into enemy territory, has no anti-aircraft “area defence system”; the other two strike corps are equipped with the vintage Russian SA-6, designed in the early-1960s. This makes them dangerously vulnerable to enemy fighters if they advance deep into enemy territory.