India has finally woken up to the need to guard its eastern sky with more vigour.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has embarked on a project to upgrade its facilities along the eastern frontier. To start with, it has chosen one of its most strategically important bases in the north-eastern region.

The IAF on Thursday formally closed down its airbase at Tezpur in central Assam, in order to make it fit for the state-of-the-art Sukhoi 30s and other new generation combat aircrafts that it is likely to induct by 2012.

The chief of the IAF’s Eastern Command Air Marshal P K Borbora said that it would take almost a couple of years to make the runways and avionics of the airbase suitable for Russian Sukhois. At least two squadrons of the Su-30MKIs would be stationed in the upgraded airbase possibly by the end of 2009, he added.

The Su-30MKIs will replace the ageing MiG 21s that the IAF’s mainstay consisted of, through the 1970s and ’80s.
The airbase at Tezpur played key roles in Sino-Indian war in 1962 as well as in the ‘liberation war’ of Bangladesh in 1971.

Change in doctrine
The move to boost air-defence along the eastern frontiers hints a change in the IAF’s decades-old doctrine, which laid more emphasis on countering the threat-perception from across the western border.

It comes almost a decade after China gave a major fillip to its air-power along its border with India, by constructing 14 major airbases and a number of tactical airstrips in Tibet.

Though New Delhi does not foresee a re-run of the 1962 war with China, the IAF has been insisting on keeping a deterrent force ready in northeastern region to deal with any eventuality.

Once upgraded, the airbase at Tezpur will be ready for not only the Sukhois, but also for some of the new generation 126 multi-role combat aircrafts for which the IAF has of late floated a global tender. “The other airbases in the region would also be upgraded later,” said Air Marshal Borbora.

Since 1968, the airbase at Tezpur has been one of the IAF’s biggest hubs for the Soviet-era MiG 21s. It has been the cradle of many of the fighter pilots of the IAF, as two MiG Operational Flying Training Units – MOFTU Bravo and MOFTU Alpha – and the Operational Conversion Unit (OCU) were based here. The EAC’s spokesman Wing Commander Benoy Chongtham said that the MOFTU Bravo and OCU had already been shifted to other bases last year. The MOFTU Alpha would also be moved out of Tezpur soon, he added.

Most of the MiG 21s and other transport aircrafts and helicopters have already been flown out of the airbase at Tezpur. Air Marshal Borbora was in Tezpur on Thursday to ceremonially bid adieu to the last squadron of the MiG 21s. But the aircrafts could not be flown out till afternoon due to inclement weather.