India's has capacity to intercept Hatf missiles

Defence Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday assured the Lok Sabha that India had the capacity to intercept and destroy the 'Hatf 3' missiles ''developed by Pakistan with Chinese help even if they are fitted with nuclear warheads.''

The defence minister wanted to remind Pakistan that the 800-km range of the Hatf missiles could threaten only parts of India while Indian missiles could cover entire Pakistan.

Replying to supplementaries, Yadav said India was keen to establish peace and understanding with Pakistan and hoped that the ongoing Indo-Pak talks would help remove irritants.

Replying to another question, Yadav said the government was aware that Pakistan was building her missile capabilities through acquisition of M-11 missiles from China as also through indigenous development of missiles including the Hatf with technological assistance from China.

The government are also aware of Pakistan's allegation of deployment of Prithvi missile near border. All the developments relating to acquisition and deployment of missiles by Pakistan are constantly monitored.

With a view to equipping the Indian armed forces with the state-of-the-art missiles, an integrated guided missile development programme was sanctioned by the government in 1983. The design and development of missiles under this programme is progressing as planned, said Yadav. Prithvi missile has gone into production. Other missiles are at various stages of development.

The defence minister said the armed forces were already reinforcing the ground defence system to face up the threat posed by the Hatf missiles.

Referring to an American newspaper report on Indian missile depot near Jallandhar, the defence minister said ''one country in the world'' always wanted to create irritants between India and Pakistan.

Yadav assured the members that the resource crunch would not be allowed come in the way of national defence. He pointed out that Finance Minister P Chidambaram had assured the house of providing any amount of funds for defence programmes.

The defence minister said that the change in the flight test schedule of the light combat aircraft was not due to any funds crunch.

Minister of State for Defence N V N Somui said that the strength of combat aircraft is to be viewed against the strike capability. Per se, the number may not indicate its capability.

In order, to maintain and enhance the air strike capability of the Indian air force, a number of steps have been taken to modernise/strengthen the IAF in view of the current as well as futuristic threat perceptions.

These steps include midlife upgradation of some of the existing aircraft/weapons systems, acquisition of additional air defence/air superiority aircraft, and induction of multirole state-of-the-art aircraft.

Steps have also been taken to strengthen the electronic warfare armour of the IAF as well as for provision of precision-guided munitions to enhance accuracy and lethality of its strike power.

Combat aircraft and attack helicopters in the IAF inventory are also been equipped with night attack capability to enable them to operate in both day and night conditions.

In reply to a question on IAF accidents, Somu said there are nine variants of MiG fighters at present in the service of IAF. It is however, not considered desirable to disclose the number of the aircraft from the security point of view. The price of various MiG variants varies from Rs 83.4 million to Rs 893.3 million at 1997-98 price level.

Since April 1993, 58 fighter aircraft met with accidents and got destroyed. The total loss on account of loss of fighter aircraft during this period as per the provisional loss statement is Rs 6.12 billion.

The cause factors for these accidents are technical defects, human error, and bird strikes. The training of IAF pilots is not, in any way, inferior to that of pilots from other countries.

Comparison of the average rate of accidents with that of other countries is not possible as the list of the number of accidents of the other countries and number of hours flown by their aircraft are not available.

Responding to a question on spying by defence personnel, Somu said comprehensive instructions exist on prophylactic security measures.

These are reviewed from time to time and circulated in order to ensure that defence personnel do not indulge in such nefarious activities.

Any personnel violating these instructions is dealt with in accordance with the provisions of laid-down rules.

A 10-year national mission has been launched for enhancing self-reliance in defence systems with a goal of progressively reducing the import of defence systems to 30 per cent of annual defence acquisitions by the year AD 2005.

For this, a three-pronged strategy has been adopted covering indigenisation of spares for the imported systems, upgradation of the defence systems held by the services, and progressive induction of increased number of indigenously developed defence systems and equipment.

A large variety of materials, components and subsystems have been developed indigenously for use in defence systems.

As a policy, major R&D programmes of the Defence Research and Development Organisation are executed by making optimal use of expertise and infrastructure available in various sectors which include the academic institutions, R&D establishments of industry, in the private and public sectors. Three research boards viz, aeronautical research and development board, naval research board, and armament research board have been approved with funding to promote research in the critical technologies.

Yadav also denied that work on fencing the international border along Pakistan and in Kashmir had been suspended or that fencing had been removed.

Yadav said the fencing work had been delayed due to continued firing from across the border.

Yadav said there has been ''no increase'' in the intensity of firing from across the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir during 1997 as compared to corresponding period of 1996.

He said the total number of incidents of firing along the Line of Control (LoC) and international border during 1996 was 2,949 and 170 respectively. As against this, during the first seven months of 1997, there were 1,056 incidents of firing on the LoC and 137 incidents on the border.

Twentyfour army, four BSF and 21 civilians were killed in Pakistani firing along the LoC and border in 1996 and this year so far. The number of wounded in these three categories was 148,21 and 61 respectively, Yadav said.

UNI