As of August 2011 , Indian Air force operates 159 Su30MKI across 8 sqds
while Number of Mig21 have fallen to 154 as of September 2011 , thanks to both retirement and crashes
By 2017 , Mig21 will fall down to zero , while Su30MKI will rise to 270
Now my question is , in few yr we will not have any other aircraft to deploy in our frontline bases except MKI , coz Rafale would be deployed in Northeast , while PAKFA would be initially deployed in Rae Baraili to provide aircover to Delhi
Earlier , we used to deploy Mig21 in our Airbases facing Pakistan and Mig21/27 in Northeast
Today , those Mig21/27 squadrons stationed on the front line are being retired , and only MKI is available to replace them
While we have tried to delay the deployment of MKI against pakistan , as far as possible
Thats the reason why Mig29s were Deployed in our forward bases in 2009,2010 , when Mig21 stationed there were phased out
we could have easily deployed MKI in 2009 , since we had atleast 110 of them in 2009 and 140 of them in 2010 , while only 36 were stationed against china