1 November 2015

Army’s TCS – bogged down again?

By Lt Gen Prakash Katoch
30 Oct , 2015

There was much euphoria in early 2014 when two developing agencies were finally selected for developing the Army’s Tactical Communications System (TCS) after years of delay. But this too appears to have been bogged down like most military systems under the ambiguous pretext of “procedural delays”.

The Army had hoped to bring the TCS aboard as soon as possible, but instead of quickly moving ahead on a project first conceived in 2000, procedural disputes involving the two development agencies tapped to compete for the program have halted progress.

It is most unfortunate since the Army required this system more than two decades back with its requirement increasing exponentially to accommodate existing and future war-fighting concepts that encompass mobility, fast paced manoeuvres and rapid dispersion aside from Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), battlefield transparency, exchange of information, speedy target acquisition and the requirement to make quick decisions.

Ironically, the project was originally scheduled to commence in year 2000 (christened TCS 2000) but never saw the light of the day. Later, this was given the name TCS 2010 but has really started moving forward only from year 2009. The Army had hoped to bring the TCS aboard as soon as possible, but instead of quickly moving ahead on a project first conceived in 2000, procedural disputes involving the two development agencies tapped to compete for the program have halted progress.

Of the two developing agencies selected, one is the state owned Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL). The second development agency involves a consortium made up of private sector defense companies, including Larsen & Toubro, Tata Power SED, and HCL Ltd. Both have been tasked with each developing a TCS prototype at the cost of $100 million apiece. The government is to finance 80 percent of the costs incurred in the prototype development. Once the systems are developed they will be evaluated, tested on the ground, and then one of the two will be down-selected for production. The entire process, conducted under the Indian Defense Acquisition Council’s “Make in India” procurement category, requiring fully indigenous-sourced content was expected to take 36 months but is bogged down.

The Larsen & Toubro, Tata Power SED, and HCL Ltd Consortium is reportedly refusing to proceed with development until it receives equivalent tax incentives provided to BEL, as well as control over the intellectual property rights (IPR) to the system. The first demand of the Consortium is very valid – why should they not have the same incentives as BEL? As to the question of IPR, as per the project requirements the IPR are to be with the Army through MoD.

…since TCS would be a dedicated strategic project, the Army wants to ensure the technologies built into the prototype and the final system are ‘sanitized’, implying these technologies are exclusively developed for the Army and not shared.

On the other hand, since TCS would be a dedicated strategic project, the Army wants to ensure the technologies built into the prototype and the final system are ‘sanitized’, implying these technologies are exclusively developed for the Army and not shared.

At the same time, the developing agencies wonder how the Army can ensure these technologies can remain ‘sanitized’ since it implies the developing agencies have to take an undertaking from the overseas equipment manufacturers for unrestricted use of the imported technologies while the norms for checks on technologies would be uniform for both developing agencies. The Consortium demand related to IPR is also perhaps because of the ‘Make in India’ call by the Prime Minister which is to transform India into a manufacturing hub, and obliquely implies products may be sold elsewhere with or without permission on case to case basis.

In any event, what has happened on ground is that development of the prototype by the Larsen & Toubro, Tata Power SED, and HCL Ltd Consortium has not taken off. But that is not all. Demanding a ‘Level Playing Field’, an executive of the Consortium has stated, “The Indian government has already created facilities in BEL which would be utilized by them free of cost, whereas, the private sector consortium would have to make investments that would be loaded on our offer. Ideally, the depreciation and interest of the MoD-funded facilities should at least be loaded on BEL to ensure a level playing field. This is still an issue to be resolved”.

This is a valid argument by the Consortium that needs to be addressed especially since the production contract is eventually to be awarded to the “lowest bidder” post development of the prototypes.

For many years the government claims of providing level playing field to the private sector have never been more than cosmetic; at best through DRDO-DPSUs, which is grossly unfair and not conducive to optimizing developments for bridging equipment and system voids of the military.

For many years the government claims of providing level playing field to the private sector have never been more than cosmetic…

Halting of development of the prototype TCS by the Consortium would lead to:
further avoidable delay (beyond 36 months) in developing the prototype TCS, leading to further delay in production and eventual fielding of a system conceived one and a half decade back;
undue advantage to BEL;
possible pullout by the Consortium in case disputes remain unresolved leading to a single vendor situation and the whole procedure of selection of vendors being repeated afresh, and / or;
alternatively, BEL given the production contract in event of pullout by the Consortium despite single vendor situation.

What is highly intriguing is that despite these disputes lingering for over a year and a half, no effort has been made by the government to resolve them. This leads to the suspicion that it may well be deliberate, leading to the fourth contingency mentioned above: BEL given the production contract in event of pullout by the Consortium despite single vendor situation. This would be highly unfortunate and certainly not in line with the hype created about ‘Make in India’. Besides, time certainly appears to have no value for our policy makers.

Since future military tactical communication networks must be highly mobile, survivable and reconfigurable, TCS for the Indian Army must be designed to meet changing tactical situations…

It may be noted that the TCS project is worth over $2 billion (over Rs 10,000 crores) and TCS became the first ‘Make’ program under the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2011, with government providing 80 per cent of the funds for the development phase and rest 20 per cent funds will coming from the industry. The idea of ‘Make’ projects was conceived several years ago.

Kelkar Committee on Defence was instrumental in pushing forward the idea and finally, in 2006, it was introduced in the DPP. This selection of the development agencies for TCS was an outcome of rigorous rounds of scrutiny and years of concerted efforts put in by the Corps of Signals of the Indian Army jointly with the Indian Defence industry.’

Why a Tactical Communication System (TCS) for the Indian Army approved in principle by two successive Defence Ministers years back was delayed by a decade plus and made forward movement only recently will remain a mystery. After every approval by a Defence Minister, the case was simply shut and a fresh file opened. Heads would have rolled in another country but in the cacophony that is India, everything is doable. A flexible threat reaction demands very mobile units which may be spread over a large geographical area. If the forces are to operate under a centralized management and at the same time retain their mobility, heavy demands are put on the communication system. These demands will be in the form of security, survivability, and protection against electronic warfare.

A TCS is used within/in direct support of tactical forces. Since future military tactical communication networks must be highly mobile, survivable and reconfigurable, TCS for the Indian Army must be designed to meet changing tactical situations and varying environmental conditions, provide secure communications (voice, data and video) effectively linking mobile users of all tactical units in field. TCS is a system that is meant for offensive operations, configured as a mobile system that can leapfrog in sync with rapidly advancing strike operations – covering offensive elements of both the ‘strike’ and ‘pivot’ corps. Important requirements for the radio system are: ESM and ECM resistance; integrated voice and data to the user; performance matching projected user demand (like error detection/correction, quality, delays); effective use of transmission medium; interoperability; flexibility in deployment; survivability; provision of user mobility (carry options, easy access etc).

The TCS when fielded with requisite mobile terminals network, will fulfill a long-standing critical operational void of the Indian Army.

The overall network concept in the tactical battle area (TBA) is primarily divided into two main levels – static communications and mobile. The static communication part is being catered for by the Indian Army going full steam with a new optical fibre cable (OFC) network, especially since the military was made to surrender 3G spectrum. Absence of TCS and patchy availability of OFC in TBA has also been adversely affecting trials and fielding of operational information systems even though we have had a full-fledged corps for undertaking field trials.

The TCS when fielded with requisite mobile terminals network, will fulfill a long-standing critical operational void of the Indian Army. While inaugurating Defcom 2012, the then Defence Minister had said, “As the tactical domain is extremely fragile, with rapid mobility in a hostile and dynamic environment, modern day communication tools have reduced the gap between strategic, operational and tactical domains”, adding, “The single biggest challenge facing societies and nations was the vulnerability of communication and network devices to attacks, or threats in the electronic, cyber as well as the physical domain”.

Expressing concern over the ongoing procedural dispute delaying the TCS, an Army official says, “Even Pakistan has developed its own TCS type of project, and further delays on the Indian project will affect combat worthiness of the India Army”. Hope the powers that be take serious call on the delay, resolve the procedural disputes speedily, and get the project going.
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