The idea is to have at least two aircraft carriers operational at any one given time while the third is under routine maintenance.

As navies are not built overnight, and ship-building is a slow and time consuming process, any delay in any one of the steps in the process has a cascading effect. Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Sureesh Mehta has indicated that 30 plus ships are on long term order, but there have indeed been unacceptable delays in delivery.

India has a powerful Planning Commission but the government has never thought of an Execution Commission, and that malady plagues all departments, and delays are condoned. The story is no different for the Indian Air Force (IAF) or the Army. The political and bureaucratic establishment rarely takes the alarm bells seriously while there have been a couple of prime ministers who actually opposed replacement of outdated equipment.

There is a huge difference however in the process to fulfill the requirements of a navy and an air force. Air Forces can be beefed up soon, but not a Navy as Admiral Cunningham told Churchill during the World War II.

The Indian Navy, like any other, needs both long-term planning and uninterrupted process of implementation so that there is no void.

The Indian Navy needs maritime reconnaissance aircraft, trainer aircraft, UAVs, and even tankers to support the ships at sea.

It has one medium sized 24,000 ton tanker, the 10-year old INS Aditya, built at GRSE Kolkatta, and one large 39,000 ton tanker bought from Russia, INS Jyoti. These two cannot sustain India's two fleet Navy for extended operations in the Indian Ocean and accordingly, a third tanker has been ordered from Italy's Fincantieri.

India's aircraft carrier, submarine and other programmes are delayed, and while tankers can be bought out or leased in time of need, the lack of an aircraft carrier may force the Fleet Commander to alter his plans in to a defensive mode.

India's only aircraft carrier at present is INS Viraat, the 23,900 ton ex-HMS. Its keel was laid in 1944 at Vickers Yard in Burrow on Furness and commissioned 15 years later on 18 November 1959. The Indian Navy received the ship from UK in 1987 and it has already been subjected to three extended upgrades in Navy's Mumbai Dockyard.

The grand Old Lady has been in service for 47 years, and needs rest.

Warships normally have a operational life of 30 years after which they are invariably decommissioned. It is to the credit of the Indian Navy that the steam propulsion Viraat is still materially operational for Sea Harrier flying.

The Harriers are also aging and being selectively upgraded by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) with new Elta 2032 radars and Derby missiles.

The Indian Navy has however decided not to buy second-hand Harriers from the UK although there is an urgent need for more, but newer, ship-borne aircraft.

INS Viraat which has exercised with France's Charles De Gaulle is set to exercise with the 80,000 ton US carriers USS Nimitz and Kitty Hawk early September in the joint exercise Malabar-07 in the Bay of Bengal.

The aircraft and helicopters from Viraat will operate with the latest USF-18 Super Hornets and E2C Hawk Eye shipboard surveillance aircraft and cross deck in the exercises to exchange officers and crew. It will certainly be a very important opportunity for them as they will learn firsthand the multiple catapult launch of aircraft and their recovery by arrestor gear.

There will be exposure also to the latest weapons and avionics, some of which the US is already willing to sell to India.

The exposure will come in useful for the operation of MiG-29Ks on board the INS Vikramditya which will have STOBAR, Short take off and arrestor landing capabilities.

COMMAND DOCTRINE OF CARRIERS AND IMPLICATIONS OF THEIR UNAVAILABILITY

Doctrinally, aircraft carriers are assets for a Blue Water navy. They are associated in three levels of war: the grand strategic, which incorporates the full range of issues associated with political independence and territorial integrity and influence of power; the military strategic, which is the military component of grand strategy and finally the operational tactical level in support of the operations of the surface and submarine fleet, where actual fighting takes place.

Aircraft carriers in the World War II, and more recently in the Gulf war's Operation Iraqi Freedom, have provided strong support to the land operations.

The US Navy carries the world's 2nd largest air force on board its ships. The implications are obvious.

During peacetime, aircraft carriers are a big help in evacuating people from calamity-struck areas, as in a Tsunami or Hurricane disaster. And if there is any requirement of Force Projection, the carriers extend the reach of diplomacy, even to shake hands with friendly countries and strengthen ties.

After all, having a modern and adequate force is not about war itself but, in today's world, about deterrence and preventing an enemy from attacking another country's soil and interests.

India's interests are stated to be around the Gulf in the Arabian Sea towards the west, and to the Malacca Straits towards the east. Indian ships regularly visit neighbouring countries in these regions to strengthen friendly relations.

The military strategy is developed by the Chiefs of Staff and hence the Indian Navy's tactical doctrine and tactical actions are predicated by one aircraft carrier being made available to the Fleet Commander at all times.

In the 1965 war INS Vikrant (HMS Majestic), India's lone carrier was under refit. This contributed to the fact amongst others, why the Indian Navy was kept away from that war by a Joint Secretary's note, and told to keep its powder dry.

In the 1971 war, INS Vikrant had boiler problems limiting its speed, and accordingly it was dispatched to the East where the threat level was lower than in the west. Operating in tandem with the Indian Air Force (IAF), it was able to ensure that the Eastern air power of the Pakistani Air Force (PAF) was neutralized swiftly. That contributed to the war ending in 14 days with a surrender of the Pakistani army and formation of Bangla Desh.

Aircraft carriers are special ships with unique building characteristics, and India has taken up the gauntlet by building one at Cochin. Fincantieri, which is building the Count Cavour in Italy, has been roped in as the consultant to make the best use of its expertise and experience.

This lesson has not been lost on UK which has not built carriers for years. Hence it is jointly planning to build two similar 60,000 ton aircraft carriers with France for interoperability. UK hopes to learn from the experience of the French Navy which encountered problems in the size of the nuclear powered Charles de Gaulle to operate the newer Rafale aircraft. Despite excellent calculations, the ship's landing deck had to be enlarged, post facto.

The ship's bridge also was located too far forward and led to turbulence for aircraft landing and the vessel lost a propeller in the Caribbean islands. The ship limped back to France with a tug in escort.

All these issues are being rectified in the new UK French carriers.

When there is no operational flat top platform for continuation training and deck landing qualifications, the consequence is a backlog of pilots rapidly losing their deck landing qualifications DLQ. Indian Navy pilots are being trained in USA and at IAF bases in India as the Indian Navy is set to receive its first MiG 29Ks in the coming months.

Notably, the first MiG 29K flew spectacularly at the MAKS aviation show outside Moscow recently.

INS Viraat was to have been decommissioned by 2010 but now it appears it will have to bat on longer than anticipated, as both of India's aircraft carriers on order have been delayed. The Gorshkov - to be christened INS Vikramaditya on commissioning - being refitted at the Sevmash shipyard at Severnodinsk in Russia, is delayed for delivery from 2008 to 2010 and the head of the shipyard has been removed for the faux pas. Nevsokye Design Bureau has been asked to look in to this.

A delegation led by UK-trained engineer Vice Admiral B S Randhawa, the Controller of Warship Production and Acquisition (CWPA), slated to be the next Chief of Material, had visited Russia mid May and inspected the Mk 1143.4 Admiral Gorshkov, and yet again in July. He confirmed that the ship is behind schedule.

Strangely, the Russians also asked for price escalation, saying that they had made a mistake in calculating the required work, and despite also that the delay was due to their own problems.

Even then, Defence Secretary Shekar Dutt, who is now India's Deputy National Security Advisor (NSA), and Secretary Defence Finance V K Misra, visited Moscow in July to help resolve the issue.

According to former Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) Admiral Arun Prakash, the Russians need to be penalized for the delay as they had already been afforded one escalation.

The Navy Chief, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, is an experienced aviator who, like his predecessor, has flown off INS Viraat and Vikrant as a green horn Sea Hawk rookie pilot. He was looking forward to inducting the Vikramaditya during his tenure. He has indicated a new date for its induction, as after late 2008. It will be a challenge for the next Navy team in South Block to ensure that the vessel is transferred to India not far behind the schedule.

The 273 meter long, 30 year old 48,500 ton Gorshkov's keel was laid in 1976 at the Nikolayev Shipyard now in Ukraine, and when commissioned, it operated 14 Yakovlev Yak-141 vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) Fighters, eight Yak-38 Forger VTOL fighters, as well as 16 Kamov Ka-25 and Ka-252RLD Hormone and Ka- 252PS Helix anti-submarine warfare (ASW), reconnaissance and search and- rescue (SAR) helicopters.

The ship was earmarked for scrapping, and then offered to the Indian Navy free, provided India paid for its refurbishment and bought Russian aircraft to operate from it. Admiral J G Nadkarni was among those who supported its acquisition towards fulfilling the Indian Navy's need for aircraft carriers.

After much delay and procrastination, India signed a US$ 1.5 billion Gorshkov modernisation contract in 2004 under Defence Minister George Fernandes' direction. Its refurbishment was agreed at $ 700 million, and the rest was for the 16 MiG-29K fighters, helicopters, miscellaneous equipment and weapons from third parties.

Many of the carrier's old systems are being removed while the new equipment includes some Made-in- India sensors and other systems.

The Anti Aircraft system is likely to be the Israeli Barak, though this acquisition is under the CBI's scanner over allegations of bribe by IAI/Rafael to an Indian middleman in the Rs 1100 crore deal.

Israeli missiles had to be purchased in the wake of the 1999 Kargil War when the naval brass found to its dismay that Indian naval ships had no protective missile cover, thanks to the paralysis in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) from 1990 onwards.

Gorshkov's 24 meter wide deck has been fitted with three arrester wires, as opposed to the US carriers which have four and two 30-ton and 20 ton lifts located on the port side, and one aft of the superstructure for continuous operations of MiG-29Ks on the 2,400 square meters deck space.

The MiG 29KUBs are being fitted with French Thales Top Sight helmet sighting device for attack, and the Sagem Sigma-95 laser-gyroscope inertial navigation system, with open architecture.

The open architecture enables changes easily.

The cockpit will have three multipurpose MFI10-6 data screens in the MiG-29KUB's front and rear cockpits, the IKSH-1K Heads Up Display (HUD). Target data in video will be from Phazatron with NIIR radar, the new-generation Zhuk-ME optronic radar, in digital terrain contour matching (TERCOM) map along fiber optic channels. Many innovations are new and never been installed in Russia's inventory earlier.

Russians' lack of experience in the new systems could be contributing to the delay. For instance, INS Talwar was inordinately delayed from Russia due to electronic interference between the Shtil AA system and the 100mm gun radar.

India's other challenge is the home-designed Project 71, the 37,500 ton carrier platform being built at Cochin Shipyard. It has also been delayed till 2014 as the hull construction was held up due to the non availability of the bulbous bars for the new Integrated Hull Outfitted and Painted (IHOP) construction of the hull.

These were promised by the Steel Authority of India Ltd. (SAIL), which could not meet the time schedule. Naval ships are constructed by the PERT method, and delay of one critical path can lead to long overall delays.

In the new methodology of construction, plates of the hull are made thinner but 'join welded' by strong bulbous bars of special steel of exact size made by a process of extrusion.

250 tons of specially ordered busbar joints have recently been imported from Russia through Rosboronservice, and more ordered. The carrier is unlikely to be in service before 2015 at the earliest, and the equipment fit is also nowhere being finalized.

The onboard aircraft are likely to be the MiG-29Ks, as Admiral Arun Prakash told India Strategic last year hat the Indian Navy could eventually have about 50 Mig 29K aircraft.

India's Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas, meant primarily for IAF, is also delayed. Its naval variant would need a very strong under carriage, protection from sea water corrosion and arrestor hooks. That could take some more years of trials ashore even after the IAF version is fully inducted. The ship will also have to have a Weapon and Electronic Warfare suite suitable for the future as technology is fast advancing.

Delay means revision of onboard equipment to meet demands of the emerging scenario. That means more costs, and discomfort for those managing the financial allocation.

The key lies in timely implementation of the project with zero tolerance from any side.