Chandigarh: India remains perpetually on the cusp of major defence deals, the latest being long-delayed agreements with Germany for six submarines and France for 114 multi-role fighter aircraft (MRFA) – both still unsigned, and emblematic of the services’ and the Ministry of Defence’s chronic inability to convert intent into action.The Indian Navy’s over Rs 70,000 crore or USD 8 billion Project 75(I) submarine programme, now centred on a German-designed platform, has been more than two decades in gestation, tracing its origins to the late 1990s and early 2000s.The proposed MRFA buy, valued at between USD 25-30 billion, was formally launched in 2019 after the collapse, three years earlier, of the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) tender for 126 Dassault Rafales. It had, however, been under discussion for much of the preceding decade, as the Indian Air Force grappled with worryingly declining fighter squadron numbers.But years of platform evaluations, tender revisions and procedural resets for both procurements were yet to translate into contractual closure. One unresolved technical or commercial issue after another continued to surface – whether from the Services, the MoD or both. High-level political engagement between India, Germany and France repeatedly raised expectations of a breakthrough, only to fade without result.German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s recent visit to Ahmedabad, for instance, fuelled expectations that the long-pending submarine joint venture between Thyssen Krupp Marine Systems (TKMS) and Mazagaon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) to domestically construct six advanced Type 214 boats might be clinched, but to no avail. After more than two years of negotiations, the project remains stalled over issues that were evident from the outset – pricing, the scope of technology transfer and the level of indigenous content to be incorporated in the boats.Alongside, in recent days, focus has shifted to the impending visit of French President Emmanuel Macron on February 19, for the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi. This has also raised expectations that the stalled MRFA negotiations, with the Rafale widely seen as the frontrunner, could see some progress.A two-star Indian Navy veteran, involved with the P75I project while in service, said the operational gaps are widening as the clock keeps ticking. The prolonged uncertainty surrounding these two critical platform acquisitions reflected a procurement system paralysed by procedure and loath to take timely decisions. “Postponement, it seems, remains the default option in such cases, rather than any urgency to shape outcomes,” he said, declining to be named. The result, he added grimly, was that the Indian military’s capability gaps were being managed – but not closed.Also read: India’s Abysmal Defence Procurement Planning That Leads to ‘Poopcee Acquisitions’Few materiel procurements in recent years better reflect the systemic dysfunction within the MoD and the two services than the P75I and the MRFA buys. Initiated years ago under different governments, and driven by operational urgency to arrest looming capability gaps in two critical domains –undersea warfare and air superiority – both had morphed into case studies in drift.The P75I was formally launched 19 years ago, in 2007, and the MRFA in 2017-18. Yet, mired in a labyrinthine and over-engineered acquisition process and constantly shifting qualitative requirements, both programmes had badly faltered. It seems that as India’s maritime and aerial threats mounted, the platforms meant to counter them remained stuck in files at the MoD and at respective Service headquarters.The P75I programme has its roots in the Indian Navy’s 30-year Maritime Capability Perspective Plan formulated in the early 2000s to induct 24 conventional diesel-electric (SSK) submarines, a force structure later recalibrated to accommodate six nuclear-powered attack submarines SSNs for greater reach and flexibility in an increasingly contested Indian Ocean Region. This reduced the requirement for SSKs to 18 boats.Sukhoi Su-30 MKI and Rafale aircraft during a joint air exercise of the Indian Air Force and the French Air and Space Force. Credit: @IAF_MCC/X via PTI PhotoThe first six of these were delivered under Project-75, with French-origin Kalvari (Scorpene)-class submarines built under licence at MDL at a cost of some Rs 23,000 crore. Their intended follow-on, P75I – under which the TKMS-MDL consortium is to construct six next-generation SSKs with fuel-cell-based air-independent propulsion and land-attack capability – continues to flounder.Time, however, remains the decisive constraint, for even if a contract were signed in 2026-27, the first boat is unlikely to enter service before the early 2030s, with the sixth arriving only toward the decade’s end. Hence, a programme conceived at the turn of the millennium may take nearly 40 years to reach fruition is, by any measure, staggering, to say the least.The knock-on effects of such a delay, too, were already visible.As the P75I stalled, the Indian Navy and the Ministry of Defence approved an add-on order of three additional Scorpene-class submarines to stabilise force levels and sustain yard continuity at MDL. Rising costs, extended build timelines, and the prospect of P75I finally moving ahead thereafter, were now beginning to cast doubt over this stopgap, raising the possibility that this supplementary Scorpene purchase might be deferred, or even quietly shelved. If that happens, the Indian Navy risks moving through much of the 2020s with neither interim reinforcements, nor the promised future fleet via P75I.Also read: IAF’s Capabilities Are Long Dwindling, and the Problem Isn’t a Lack of Ideas or PlatformsIn the meantime, the Indian Navy’s six Kalvari-class SSKs were on the verge of a major upgrade, with locally developed AIP systems, vastly improving their underwater endurance and stealth. Until recently, all these boats were also hamstrung by a glaring shortfall – the absence of heavyweight torpedoes (HWTs), rendering them little more than silent observers in dangerous waters.Without HWTs, the Scorpenes’ ability to deter or neutralise enemy warships and submarines was constrained, undermining their role as frontline undersea combatants. But the planned integration of Black Shark HWTs from Italy’s Whitehead Alenia Sistemi Subacquei (WASS) will finally give the boats real offensive teeth after years of lost operational advantage in yet another mess-up by the Indian Navy and Ministry of Defence.The ministry had previously scrapped a contract for 98 Black Sharks in 2016, over unproven corruption allegations against WASS’s owners, only to announce last month the acquisition of 48 of the same torpedoes in a delay that effectively robbed the navy of a credible undersea deterrent for years. In the process, HWT quantity was halved, costs escalated and accountability quietly dissolved.Conversely, the MRFA programme formally began in April 2019 – though it had been in the works for a decade earlier – with a Request for Information for 114 fighter aircraft, aimed at stabilising the Air Force’s dwindling combat strength, which has fallen from 42.5 to just 29-30 squadrons presently. Under this, 18 of the shortlisted fighters were to be imported in fly-away condition, and the remaining 96 built locally via a transfer of technology in a joint venture with the Original Equipment Manufacturers and a strategic partner from India’s public or private sector.According to industry sources and multiple recent media reports that cite unnamed military officials, the air force had effectively settled on Rafale as its preferred MRFA choice from amongst nine competing platforms. As it is already operating 36 Rafales, the fighter had proven itself in Operation Sindoor and was familiar to the IAF in terms of training, logistics and weapons integration.Yet this tacit decision is far from being translated into formal action to further the badly needed procurement, with it not even having received an AoN, the formal defence ministry approval that a military purchase is essential – one that officially kicks off all Indian materiel procurements. Nor has it seen the issuance of a formal request for proposal or tender.Meanwhile, the Tribune reported on Friday, again citing unnamed officials, that after formally informing the defence minister last September of its decision to shortlist the Rafale as its preferred MRFA option, the air force had laid down a set of “non-negotiable” conditions for the acquisition. Chief among these was the integration of locally developed radars and sensors, a requirement that would entail significant modifications to the aircraft’s mission-computer software by Dassault.The news report added that the IAF is seeking an upgraded variant of the Rafale as its preferred MRFA platform, blending elements of the F3R aircraft it currently operates with capabilities drawn from the newer F4 standard and the follow-on F5 configuration.But such dilly-dallying carried serious operational consequences, a senior military aviation official in Bangalore said. The problem, he stated, declining to be named, was no longer evaluation, but the will and commitment to acquire an MRFA. “The real danger in such a situation remains the mounting cost of endlessly postponing decisions, like in the earlier cancelled MMRCA deal, “ he said.Other industry executives warned that the collapse of the MMRCA tender stands as a cautionary precedent. They said that what was once an opportunity to induct 126 Rafales, stabilise IAF fighter squadron strength and build long-term industrial capacity in military aviation had left the force pursuing the more complex and vastly more expensive MRFA acquisition years later.In 2012 – nearly 15 years ago – former Indian Army Chief of Staff General V.K. Singh had drolly but accurately observed that military procurements in India were a “version of Snakes and Ladders, where there is no ladder, only snakes.” He had appositely warned against these “snakes” – a malevolent euphemism for officials in the defence acquisition system who could derail the entire process by ‘biting’ – after which the procurement, like the ancient Indian board game Moksha Patnam, slid right back to the beginning.“Little has changed since Gen Singh’s observation,” said the industry official. Unfortunately, the perpetually deferred procurement narrative remains untouched, despite the deafening hype surrounding military modernisation by the government and the services, he added.Others involved in defence acquisitions noted that the steady delegation of powers to the services, with the creation of a Chief of Defence Staff and the Department of Military Affairs, had in no way freed this process from delays; if anything, it had made it even more prone to deferrals, like the P75I and the MRFA procurements