Maintaining the edge for the Bharatiya Vayu Sena - An Ethmos Perspective

Bhartiya Vayu Sena is the air wing of the Bharatiya armed forces; it has always performed its due with vigil and attention.  In modern times the air forces of other nation are adapting rapidly as compared to their Bharatiya counterpart in the term of aircraft number and modernization.

*Bharatiya Air force has the strength of 1,27,000 active personal as per the data of the Military Balance 2010, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). According to Flight Global estimates there are around 1588 aircrafts in the service with IAF.

The Bharatiya Raksha Mantralaya heavily depends upon the military relation with Russia, the erstwhile USSR. Russia has been the prime supplier of the defense equipment to Bharatiya armed forces. Bhartiya Vayu Sena is no exception.  The majority of the fleet comprises of MIG -21, MIG -29, Sukhoi (SU) 30 MKI with one or two exception in the form of Mirage 2000 (French) and the famed HAL HF-24 and HAL Tejas (both more or less “tractors with wings that don’t fly”).  In the span of nearly 60 years Hindustan Aeronautics Limited [ HAL ] is able to deliver only two fighter aircrafts from its stable.  The most overhyped aircraft of modern times, HAL Tejas, has been inducted recently in the month of Januar 2015.  As far as the modernization of the air force of various countries is concerned Bhartiya Vayu Sena is actually moving at a snail’s pace.  It is imperative on the part of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited [HAL] to come up with defense equipments to suffice the needs of Bharatiya armed forces.  HAL has been involved in the preparation of fifth generation fighter aircraft, but these preparations are yet to see the shining light. 

For the layman public, please understand that “fifth generation fighter” are the most advanced fighter jets developed so far and the one and only one so far inducted into any Air Force is the F-22 Raptor inducted by the US Air Force in 2005 and manufactured by Lockheed Martin.  Many countries including Russia and China are trying frantically to develop a similar one but those are still under testing/prototype stages (Russia is making the Su PAK FA while China is making the Chengdu J-20 and Shenyang J-31).  The best part of these countries is that these air crafts do actually fly! (No puns intended please)

So coming back to our point; the defense spending is at an all-time high, it is quite obvious to have large defense budget for a country like Bharat.  However this budget could have been curtailed to an extent if the government defense manufacturers would have performed at least to the extent to which they are being paid for.  It may seem bitter to the people sitting in those establishments to read this but these are the hard facts which needs to be embraced and corrective action need to be taken.

Number crunching - pure mathematics:  Are you joking Mr. Nobody?

Si no	Name	Unit Cost	Nos	Amount
1	Dassault Rafale	$ 101 million	100	$ 10.10 billion
2	HAL Tejas	$   31 million	100	$   3.10 billion

Cost of acquisition of air crafts

In the cost of 100 Rafale we can purchase at least 300 HAL Tejas but the bone of contention is that our Tejas is just not battle-ready and cannot perform at par with its peers.

Another interesting story about Tejas is that during its designing and testing of its engines, the engines were not performing up to the mark despite pouring in millions of rupees and wasting around 5-6 years.  Finally our brilliant scientists imported an engine from General Electric Corporation (USA) and just renamed it as Kaveri engine!

Why is it that our state run defence manufacturers are unable to come up with the equipments that are of world-class standards.  Nobody is willing to purchase our defense equipments other than minions like Nepal and Bhutan who just don’t have the budget or even the requirement to go for heavy mainternational standards.chinery from US or Europe.  The most probable reason is that our equipments  are just not of 

Defence Budgets:

The following is the data regarding the defence budgets of various countries as a percentage of their GDP. 

  

Country	% of GDP as defence budget	Amount (in dollars)
US	4	106
China	2.5	131
Bharat	1.74	39.8
Pakistan	3.5	N.A.

It is a universally accepted fact that the defense expenditure of 3% is helpful for the social economic development. The per capita expenditure of Bharat is $10 whereas the average expenditure of the top 10 Asian nations is $800.  Similarly the soldier to citizen ratio is 1:22 which is at a lower side.  China has already increased the defense budget by 12.2 % compared to last year.  The way PLA has been modernising the defence shows that Bharat has been doing the same at a snail's pace.  In order to restore the balance among the South East Asian countries or among Asia, it is required for Bharat to modernise the armed forces at a faster pace.

Enough of the criticism – what is the solution?

1.  Permit and encourage private defence players:  The examples all around the world (as stated above) are before you to see.  FA-22, F-16, etc. for the USAF has been made by Lockheed Martin; MIG-29 is made by Migoyan Corporation; Rafale is manufactured by Dassault Corporation; J-series fighter jets for China are manufactured by the Chengdu Corporation – WHERE IS THE CORPORATION FOR OUR BHARAT??? HAL ???  A big NO.  The performance of HAL is just not up to the mark – not much because of the lack of funds but because of the lack of talent as well as corruption.  The governments efforts towards “Make in India” and creation of SEZ for setting up defence manufacturing units are totally welcome and should be encouraged at a faster pace.
2. More research should be promoted at the grass-root level, i.e. the engineering colleges and universities spread across Bharat and good minds should be nurtured and watered so that they don’t migrate to foreign shores or end up becoming hopeless civil servants or bankers rather than the brilliant scientists that they could have been had a proper environment been given to them.
3. Fix accountability at government institutions like HAL, DRDO, ordinance factories, etc. for not meeting the required targets and make the documentation process easier.  If scientists are wasting their times in getting monetary sanctions, then when will they do the research??

The fact as of now remains that we are not modernising at the level that we are expected to restore the balance of power in Asia.  

In modern times the modernization of armed forces is need of hour. Probable solution could be

Restrict the purchase of the foreign defense equipments.

Encourage the Bharatiya private player in the defense equipment manufacturing market with supervision of defense ministry. This will create a healthy competition among the Government defense equipment suppliers.  Government should encourage more green field projects in this area and probably some day we will be able to outperform countries like Russia, US, and China.  Even though these projects will cost us heavily but it is the need of the hour.  A complete new industry will come into the foray in Bharatiya economy. Proper appraisal system should be in place in these state run defence manufacturers so that quality of the end product should be ensured. Innovation should be given the prime importance at these facilities.

When are able to send the CHANDRAYAAN to the moon, why can’t we have our expert defense equipment manufacturer who are better than their international counterparts.

A famous military saying goes that Battles are first won in the minds and then on the fields.  Perhaps its time to prove our mettle.

Happy ETHMOS

The Economic Cost Concept (ECC) - To do or not to do - An Ethmos perspective

After giving so many stupid and moronic ideas, we have come up with one more first-class "moronism" - we call it the ECC = The Economic Cost Concept.

ECC is nothing but the financial cost (both present as well as future) that is required for execution of any plan or policy or decision.  Man is a very greedy animal by core.  Most of the times whatever we do is linked to the benefit that we are getting - majority of the times, the benefit is in the form of economic or monetary gains and sometimes it is in the form of social gains, which ultimately lead to economic and monetary gains.  And there is nothing wrong in it.  In fact, had someone not looked at the gains, we would not be having so many inventions like mobile, TV, car, trains, etc.  It is fair enough for the person who is bringing these products and services to eat the fruits of his labour and ideas.  This will only encourage more people to come out with better ideas, products, and services.

Hence, when we look at every situation with an economic angle, we can find the most suitable solution to any solution that will benefit the entire society because economics deals with nothing but optimum utilization of limited resources in order to fulfill unlimited wants & desires.  Let us just illustrate our views by an example.  Suppose you were going in a bus and your purse is stolen by some pickpocket.  Your purse was having only Rs. 100/- and nothing else.  Now for reasons known solely to you, the purse was of very high emotional value to you since it has been passed down through generations since your great great great grandfather.  Hence, you decide to teach that stupid pickpocket a lesson and go to the nearest police station to lodge an FIR.  But you are amused to find that the police is not very co-operative in lodging the FIR.  Reason: - They think that it is not worth to go after a Rs. 100-carrying purse and waste their time and resources.  In this scenario, morally and ethically the victim, i.e. YOU, are correct - you have got every right to get justice and get your items back and the police should have helped you out.  But economically speaking, the police is indeed correct.  Lodging an FIR takes time to document the evidence, man hours need to be given to collect evidence and again loads of documentation needs to be done, the evidence needs to be produced before a magistrate, etc. etc.  Now consider the total costs involved regarding the stationery (paper, pen, etc.), the fuel cost for travelling across the city and finding the culprit, the cost of keeping the culprit in custody, etc. etc.  Even if they are successful in recovering your Rs. 100/- and your vintage purse, the economic cost involved will be too high to offset the emotional gains.  This is the gist of the Economic Cost Concept or the ECC that we are proposing.

Every activity has an economic cost - the activity should be pursued ONLY if the economic benefits outweigh the economic costs, i.e. Economic Benefits > Economic Costs.  Now how to calculate the ECC.  Now that's a really tough job and it has to be done on a case to case basis since economic costs are involved in virtually all situations and one single entity may not be competent enough to calculate the same.  Hence, we propose a broad organization which we may call the ECC Commission, which should propose broad guidelines for calculation of the economic cost of any action on which all the public sector employees and staff need to be trained in.  Any and we repeat, any decision, whether on policy, administrative, or operational matters need to be analyzed keeping in mind the economic costs in mind and then and then only, the final decision need to be taken.

A classic example of economic wastage is the transfer policies in the public sector which are more or less done based on the whims and fancies of the higher ups in the concerned departments rather than actual economic or business need of the organization/department.  There have been many instances wherein employees have been given transfers every year rather than the stipulated period of 2 to 3 years leading to very heavy cost of transfer incurred on the exchequer.  Many a times, employees are sanctioned LTC/LFC/HTC (leave concession for visiting native place or any place in Bharat) and suddenly their leaves are cancelled or shortened and the employee is called back due to so-called "exigent" artificially-created situations leading to heavy cost on the organization in the form of travel bills just for reimbursement of cancelled air tickets.  All this may sound trivial and small to anybody reading this, but when you consider the same for a huge number of employees working in various government bodies throughout the year, you may understand that the cost incurred may be more than enough to make schools or hospitals in many remote areas.

Economic Cost audit should also be conducted in every department in order to understand the ways in which economic cost can be optimized.  There is a system of expenditure audit in many departments but the expenditure audit just looks at the aspect of the requirement and the correctness of the expenditure incurred rather than the actual economic benefits that have been arisen out of the incurred expense.  Another classic example of ECC requirement is nothing but our own Tejas Light Combat Aircraft wherein we wasted huge resources in re-inventing the wheel and ultimately purchased the wheel from developed nations and renamed the wheel with Sanskrit jargons.  The total cost is estimated to be more than Rs. 200 Crores but that is just the money factor, what about the "time-wasted" factor?

The ECC will be useful in various decision-making situations like recovery of land dues, bank loan recovery, release of grants/aids, infrastructure development, etc. and sky is the limit for the application of this concept.

Happy Ethmos to all!