The LCA still a dream?

THE DEFENCE MINISTRY will certainly go down in history for its announcement that the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), which took its place on the drawing-boards way back in late 1970s, is unlikely to become a reality and join the squadrons of the Indian Air Force before 2012. When this happens, the LCA would have set a record of an aircraft becoming a vintage product at the very moment of its birth. It would be difficult to find another instance of a project which, apart from the ridicule to which it has already been exposed as a crucial defence project, has languished so long because of wholly inexcusable neglect and on which a huge expenditure should have been incurred.

It is even more shocking that the Ministry has told the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence with seeming insensitivity that apart from the LCA becoming operational only after 2012, there would be considerable delay in the induction of the Akash and Trishul missiles. In view of the fact that the decision to go for the production of the LCA was taken to heighten the levels of aerial protection of the country with an aircraft incorporating state-of-the-art in fighter aircraft technology, the expectations were that the LCA would become airborne not later than 10 years, by the late 1980s or early 1990s. Instead, it still remains a dream, leaving the country with a sense of frustration.

The Defence Ministry and the IAF do not have to be told about the dangers of whittling down the prospects of this being achieved within a reasonable timeframe. While the country waits for such a prestigious project like the LCA holding out the promise of making India's aerial defences impregnable, delays would only make the aircraft wholly devoid of any value with the rest of the world, particularly an unfriendly neighbour like Pakistan stealing a march on the country by acquiring or producing far superior aircraft. Right at the beginning when the LCA project was launched, there was some anxiety about its becoming a reality well in time because of the unhappy history of HF-24 Marut, which should have been the country's first indigenously developed fighter aircraft. The HF-24 project would not have been a tragedy had the lessons it threw up about the importance of building a sound research and development base for production of hi-tech aircraft been fully grasped. Had those in charge of the LCA programme both in the Defence Ministry and the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. been fully aware of the enormity of the tasks assigned to them, the progress would have been much faster. There was enormous enthusiasm in the HAL when the project was cleared and assigned to it in the 1980s because it was regarded as the first step towards entrusting the HAL, which had for long been building only foreign-designed aircraft, with the designing and building of a wholly indigenous fighter plane. The LCA programme was assigned a crucial place in the Long-Term Re-equipment Plan of the IAF. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) set up the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) for going ahead with the project by bringing the R & D establishments and the design bureau of the HAL under one umbrella.

The gloom now felt over the tardy progress of the LCA is just another illustration of what often happens to many ambitious projects in India - of glittering visions fading away. But matters relating to the LCA should not be allowed to rest there and there should be a thorough enquiry into why the programme has run aground. The plane should become airborne much faster and the country should not be asked to wait for another decade for this to happen.

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