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India loses 79 fighter planes in four years

Sixty-eight MiGs, one Kiran, six Jaguar and four Sea Harrier fighter planes have crashed since April 1994, Union Defence Minister George Fernandes told the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

Most accidents were attributed to technical defects or human error. A high-powered committee, constituted last year to analyse the causes of the accidents, has made recommendations to minimise mishaps, the minister said in a written reply.

In another reply, Fernandes said that during the past six months casualties had gone up on the Jammu and Kashmir border -- 68 security personnel were killed and 273 injured in unprovoked Pakistani firing.

The minister claimed there have been no incident of Inter Services Intelligence men from Pakistan joining the Indian Army. There were appropriate and elaborate measures to detect and neutralise enemy infiltration into armed forces.

He informed the elders that the government was in the process of setting up a naval base in Karnataka's Karwar region.

All efforts are being made to ensure the induction of the light combat aircraft into the Indian Air Force by 2003. The first indigenous LCA technology demonstrator is in the advanced stage of testing, and will be ready for its first flight by mid-1999, Fernandes revealed.

The defence minister denied that the government was planning to purchase defence hardware and service from Russia for 15 million dollars under a 10-year defence cooperation programme.

UNI

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