04 October 2004	Monday	18 Shaban 1425

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NEW DELHI, Oct 3: India's Chief of the Air Staff S. Krishna swamy has called for the downsizing of the Indian Air Force (IAF) to make it more efficient within the increasing budgetary constraints, the Hindustan Times said on Sunday.

"Let's be very clear that the defence budget can't grow. To make the most of the available budget, we have to trim manpower. We must improve the man, machine and firepower ratio. We have to maximize capability with minimum people and equipment," the Air Chief Marshal said in an interview to the newspaper.

Air Chief Marshal Krishna swamy, who is also Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee, reserved his comments however on whether he was in favour of manpower downsizing in the Army and Navy as well.

"We must make it work in the air force first," he said. The IAF has about 150,000 personnel. Downsizing was considered in the late 1990s by the Army, with the aim of saving on costs and over heads.

The idea to reduce troops by 50,000 was aborted after the 1999 Kargil skirmish, the newspaper said. Thereafter, the 1.1 million-strong Army felt its counter-insurgency deployments were too manpower-intensive for it to consider downsizing.