NEW DELHI, 4 September 2003 — India will spend more than three billion rupees ($65 million) to establish “lethal units” in its infantry battalions to counter terrorism, Defense Secretary Ajay Prasad announced yesterday.

Prasad said the decision was made yesterday by the Cabinet Committee on Security presided over by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee which also cleared a $1.7-billion deal to buy 66 British Aerospace (BAE) Hawk Advance Jet Trainers (AJTs), ending more than two decades of uncertainty over pilot training within its accident-prone air force.

“The security Cabinet has also decided to authorize the modernization of battalions with enhanced firepower, state-of-art communication equipment and night-vision capability through hand-held thermal imagers,” Prasad said.

He said the platoons would be carved from the existing battalions of India’s million-plus army and armed with lethal weaponry, part of which will be imported from the international arms market.

“The lethal units will be ready by 2007,” Prasad told a crowded press conference after the security Cabinet meeting.

The defense secretary said the military will also spend an additional 2.9 billion rupees ($62 million) over the next two years to create special units to deal with land mines and other ambushes involving explosives.

“Keeping in view rampant terrorism it has been decided to create special units to neutralize improvised explosive devices,” he said, adding that a “sizable number” of such units will be raised in the army’s engineering, infantry and other formations.

About the British trainer jets’ deal Prasad said India would buy outright 24 Hawk AJTs and build the remaining 42 under BAE license at the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautical Ltd. (HAL) plant in the southern Indian city of Bangalore.

“The delivery of the aircraft will commence after 35 months from signing of the contract with the British firm, and all 66 aircraft are expected to (be with) the IAF within the next six years.

“Until the new aircraft are available to the IAF, the contract will also provide for our pilots to be sent to Britain for training by BAE,” the defense secretary said of the deal that has dragged on since 1982.

He said each plane would cost 850 million rupees ($18 million) while the entire package including the training of pilots, raising HAL’s infrastructure and other expenses would be 80 billion rupees ($1.7 billion).

“The induction of the AJT will improve the skill levels of our trainee pilots, graduating from low-speed trainers to advanced high-performance front-line aircraft,” Prasad said.

“Presently such advanced training is being conducted on operational aircraft like MiG-21 FL due to the absence of the AJT,” the defense secretary said.

The decision to purchase the Hawk follows an increasing number of crashes among the air force’s mainstay MiG-21 fighter aircraft, which have acquired the dubious nickname “flying coffins”.

Official figures show at least 273 MiGs, worth tens of millions of dollars, were lost in crashes between 1991 and 2003, killing more than 100 pilots.

India will also buy five executive jets for its military from Brazil’s Embraer for about $158 million, Prasad said.

Four of the planes would replace aging Avro aircraft in the air force’s VIP fleet and the fifth would go to the Border Security Force, he said.

Prasad did not detail the aircraft model or say when the contract would be signed.

About a deal to acquire six French submarines Prasad said the issue did not figure at the meeting.

He said India decided to spend $105 million to arm seven of its naval ships with electronic warfare systems.