BY : Timesofindia

Amid signs of a diplomatic chill between India and Russia, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) on Thursday reportedly cleared the multi-role military transport aircraft (MRTA) agreement and other pacts to be signed during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Moscow next week.

Though there was no briefing after the CCS meeting, sources said the new Indo-Russian pacts basically dealt with measures to boost bilateral trade, energy cooperation and, of course, defence ties. The MRTA project has been in the pipeline for quite some time now but was stuck since Russia had earlier refused to purchase any aircraft under the scheme. But now, it has agreed to buy 100 of them, with India chipping in with around 50.

This pact comes close after the two countries also signed an agreement to jointly develop a fifth-generation stealth fighter aircraft (FGFA), with equal financial and technological stakes. Russian officials put the overall development cost of the Sukhoi T-50 FGFA in the region of $10 billion.

India, as reported by TOI earlier, is also on course to lease a nuclear-powered Akula-II attack submarine from Russia from mid-2008 onwards under a hush-hush Rs 2,600 crore deal signed earlier.

Then, of course, India will be acquiring another 40 Sukhoi-30MKIs to add to the 190 already contracted; 347 more T-90S to add to the 310 such main-battle tanks already inducted, and 80 more Mi-17 medium-lift utility and assault helicopters from Russia.

While Russia still remains India’s largest defence partner, New Delhi is concerned about its failure to maintain delivery schedules of contracted weapon systems, provide uninterrupted supply of spares and proclivity to jack up costs midway through execution of agreements.

The huge delay in the modernisation refit of decommissioned aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov, for instance, has emerged as a major irritant. The 44,570-tonne carrier was initially supposed to join Indian Navy by August 2008 as per the $1.5 billion package deal signed with Russia in January 2004.

But India will not be getting the carrier, already rechristened INS Vikramaditya, anytime before 2010. The package deal, incidentally, includes 16 MiG-29K ‘Fulcrum’ supersonic fighters and a mix of Ka-31 and Ka-28 helicopters to operate from the carrier’s deck.

India has also succumbed to the Russian demand for jacking up the annual cost escalation charge of contracted weapon systems to 5% from the present 2.55%. This will lead to India paying millions of dollars extra for the 230 Sukhoi-30MKI fighters it is going to acquire from Russia at an overall cost of over $8.5 billion.