PM Modi Inaugurates Moran Highway Airstrip in Assam, Signaling Strategic Shift
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Moran Emergency Landing Facility (ELF) in Assam's Dibrugarh district on Saturday, marking a significant milestone in India's defense infrastructure. This facility becomes the 15th functional highway airstrip in the country, with plans to develop 28 such ELFs across national highways nationwide.
Strategic Infrastructure in the Northeast
The 4.6-kilometer reinforced stretch on the Moran Bypass along NH-37 represents a substantial investment of Rs 100 crore. As the first emergency landing facility in the Northeast region, this dual-use infrastructure can accommodate fighter aircraft up to 40 tonnes and heavy transport aircraft up to 74 tonnes maximum take-off weight. The Prime Minister's arrival aboard an Indian Air Force C-130J aircraft underscored both the operational capability and symbolic importance of this development.
Security Context and Regional Implications
The inauguration occurs against a backdrop of heightened regional security concerns. China continues its infrastructure expansion along the Line of Actual Control, including airbase upgrades across Tibet and increased activity near Arunachal Pradesh. Meanwhile, the Pakistan front remains sensitive following Operation Sindoor in 2025, with intelligence assessments indicating heightened cross-border sensitivities across the Bangladesh-India corridor.
In this context, the Moran ELF represents more than mere infrastructure—it embodies a strategic doctrine focused on dispersal, survivability, and night-ready retaliation capabilities that define the modern Indian Air Force.
Indian Air Force Structure and Strategic Positioning
The Indian Air Force operates as a single, integrated air arm structured into seven commands—five operational and two functional. With over 60 active air stations nationwide and approximately 1,700 aircraft (including roughly 900 combat platforms across 29–30 active fighter squadrons), the force maintains comprehensive coverage across multiple threat axes.
Operational Command Architecture
- Western Air Command (New Delhi): Focuses on Pakistan and parts of the western LAC
- Eastern Air Command (Shillong): Oversees the Northeast and China-facing front
- Central Air Command (Prayagraj): Provides depth and reinforcement across central theatre
- Southern Air Command (Thiruvananthapuram): Secures maritime approaches and sea lanes
- South Western Air Command (Gandhinagar): Covers Rajasthan and Gujarat—the traditional western front
Training Command and Maintenance Command, based in Bengaluru and Nagpur respectively, ensure doctrinal evolution and fleet sustainability. This layered architecture enables the IAF to function as a unified, networked war machine rather than isolated regional forces.
Dispersal Doctrine: Transforming Air Warfare Strategy
Modern high-intensity warfare prioritizes runway destruction as an initial objective, using precision-guided munitions, stand-off cruise missiles, loitering drones, and ballistic systems to neutralize airbases within conflict's opening minutes. This vulnerability has driven the Indian Air Force to adopt a comprehensive dispersal doctrine, with Emergency Landing Facilities serving as a cornerstone of this strategic shift.
Engineering and Operational Capabilities
ELF infrastructure extends beyond simple road segments to include:
- Strengthened pavement thickness for heavy aircraft operations
- Removable median lighting systems
- Advanced arrestor systems for emergency landings
- Mobile air traffic control units
- Secure perimeter arrangements
During crisis scenarios, fighter aircraft such as the Sukhoi Su-30MKI or Dassault Rafale can divert to these facilities, refuel through mobile ground support units, rearm as necessary, and redeploy rapidly. Transport aircraft including the C-130J and Antonov An-32 can sustain logistics chains even when primary airbases face threats.
Strategic Advantages of Dispersal
Dispersal fundamentally complicates adversary targeting strategies. Instead of focusing on a limited number of major airfields, opponents must account for dozens of potential launch points across the country. This approach:
- Increases required missile expenditure for adversaries
- Reduces strike efficiency against Indian air assets
- Enhances survivability of aircraft fleets
- Shifts the air war equation from centralized vulnerability to distributed resilience
These facilities ensure that even under heavy missile assault, India retains the capability to launch sorties, sustain operations, and maintain air superiority—a decisive factor in potential multi-front conflicts.
Western Air Command: Strike Capabilities and Recent Operations
Western Air Command remains the IAF's most combat-experienced formation, operating from bases including Adampur, Ambala, Pathankot, Halwara, and Srinagar. This command constitutes the forward strike grid against Pakistan, integrating air, missile, and electronic warfare components into a cohesive operational framework.
Operation Sindoor in May 2025 demonstrated this integrated approach following the Pahalgam terror attack. India launched a calibrated, technologically layered retaliation featuring:
- Dummy aircraft sorties to trigger Pakistani radar activation
- Loitering munitions targeting exposed air defense systems
- BrahMos missile strikes against key military installations
Approximately 15 BrahMos missiles—Mach 2.8 precision weapons capable of runway denial and hardened shelter penetration—were launched against Pakistani military facilities. Satellite imagery revealed impact zones near the Sargodha region, including areas proximate to Kirana Hills, though the IAF officially maintained it targeted terror infrastructure and military facilities.
China-Facing Front: Advanced Landing Grounds and Altitude Warfare
While Pakistan presents conventional air threats, the China front poses distinct challenges related to terrain, altitude, and infrastructure depth. Eastern Air Command oversees numerous Advanced Landing Grounds (ALGs) revived and upgraded over the past decade, including:
- Daulat Beg Oldi in Ladakh
- Mechuka, Walong, Tuting, Pasighat, Vijoynagar, Ziro, and Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh
These high-altitude strips enable rapid troop insertion, artillery lift, and logistics reinforcement along the LAC. Their strategic value lies in shortening response times—aircraft operating from plains bases can stage forward to ALGs, reducing sortie turnaround during conflict scenarios.
Integrated Air Defense: Multi-Layered Protection Network
Air force strength extends beyond strike capability to include comprehensive defensive systems. India's Integrated Air Defense network functions as a multi-layered surveillance and response architecture featuring:
- Airborne platforms including Beriev A-50 (Phalcon AWACS) and Embraer 145 AEW&C providing extensive radar coverage
- Ground-based long-range radars feeding into central command nodes
- Surface-to-air systems including S-400 and indigenous Akash missiles for mid- and long-range interception
- Quick Reaction Alert fighter squadrons maintaining standby for scramble within minutes
This comprehensive grid ensures that any intrusion—whether by aircraft, drone, or missile—is detected, tracked, and assigned an engagement solution in real time.
Organizational Structure: Wings and Forward Base Support Units
At the structural level, the IAF operates approximately 47 Wings and 19 Forward Base Support Units (FBSUs). Wings represent full operational formations hosting multiple squadrons and commanded by Group Captains, managing flying operations, maintenance, and readiness within defined areas.
FBSUs function as forward-deployed transit bases, often located near borders. While not permanently hosting full squadrons during peacetime, these units are equipped to support rapid deployment during crises. In wartime scenarios, FBSUs can be upgraded to function as fully operational Wings, providing strategic depth and complicating adversary targeting.
Night Readiness: Defining Modern Air Warfare Capabilities
Night operations have transitioned from tactical advantages to operational baselines in modern air warfare. For the Indian Air Force, night readiness defines deterrence credibility across both western and northern fronts through:
- Frontline fighters equipped with night-vision compatible glass cockpits, helmet-mounted sights, and infrared targeting pods
- Systems like Litening and other electro-optical pods enabling precision targeting in zero-illumination conditions
- Airborne surveillance platforms extending radar coverage hundreds of kilometers into hostile airspace
- Continuous rotational readiness of ground-based defense systems
- Mid-air refuelling through Ilyushin Il-78 extending strike endurance during night operations
This capability proved critical during highway landing drills on the Ganga Expressway, where aircraft executed take-offs and recoveries in low-visibility conditions.
Maritime Dimension and Southern Theatre Operations
While public attention often focuses on land borders, the maritime domain has become increasingly central to India's air power strategy. Southern Air Command, headquartered in Thiruvananthapuram, anchors this responsibility across peninsular India and the Indian Ocean Region—one of the world's busiest and most strategically contested maritime spaces.
With nearly 90% of India's trade by volume and most energy imports transiting through regional sea lanes, securing these routes represents a joint air-maritime imperative. Airbases including Sulur and Thanjavur form SAC's strike capability backbone, with platforms like the Sukhoi Su-30MKI configured for maritime strike with anti-ship munitions.
The Andaman and Nicobar island chain significantly expands India's aerial reach, enabling monitoring of shipping traffic through the Malacca Strait—a strategic chokepoint for substantial portions of China's energy imports. This positioning enhances deterrence leverage during crisis scenarios.
Fleet Composition and Operational Readiness
The Indian Air Force operates approximately 1,700 aircraft across categories, including roughly 900 combat-capable platforms distributed across 29–30 active fighter squadrons. Frontline fighters include Sukhoi Su-30MKI, Dassault Rafale, Mirage 2000, MiG-29, Jaguar, and indigenous HAL Tejas aircraft.
Beyond combat aircraft, the IAF maintains strategic airlift through C-17 and C-130J platforms, aerial refuelling through Ilyushin Il-78 aircraft, and airborne surveillance via Beriev A-50 and Netra AEW&C systems. The addition of 15 operational Emergency Landing Facilities—with 28 identified for development—reflects the strategic shift toward distributed basing and enhanced survivability under missile threats.
Readiness extends beyond fleet size to encompass serviceability rates, crew proficiency, sortie generation capacity, and network integration. Aircraft availability cycles are managed through rotational maintenance under Maintenance Command, while Training Command sustains pilot throughput and tactical doctrine evolution.
Strategic Significance of the Moran Facility
The Moran Emergency Landing Facility represents more than isolated infrastructure—it embodies a visible manifestation of India's larger doctrinal shift from static defense to distributed, mobile air power. From high-altitude ALGs in Arunachal to highway runways across Uttar Pradesh and Assam, from BrahMos-powered precision strikes to integrated air defense grids, the Indian Air Force has evolved into a night-ready, networked force prepared for multi-front contingencies.
In an era defined by missile salvos, drone swarms, and grey-zone escalation, air superiority has transcended numerical advantages to encompass survivability, integration, and operational speed. The 4.6-kilometer runway at Moran stretches across a national highway, but strategically, it extends much further—across India's evolving security doctrine and into the contested skies of the region.
