New Delhi: IAF chief Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh flagged the delayed delivery of the Tejas fighters, saying that while our air warriors are better trained than the Chinese, India lags behind in technology and production capacity.
He also underlined the need to bring in private industry into the fighter jet production in case the IAF requirements were to be met and hoped that state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) would keep its promise of manufacturing 24 aircraft annually, which, he said, would make up for the now seven-month delay.
“We have done our analysis; we don’t have a design to go offensive unnecessarily. Only when we are pushed, we will be doing something. We have our plans in place. One thing I can positively say is that we are training much better than them. We have a much better exposure than them,” the IAF chief said Friday at a press briefing.
India interacts with more air forces as compared to China and hence the training is better, he said. “As far as the human angle is concerned, we are way ahead of them.”
“As far as technology is concerned, we may not be so good as of now. We have lacked and we have to catch up.”
He said that in terms of production rate, India was way behind”. We need to catch up with them and that can happen only over a period of time.”
Talking about the indigenous projects, the Indian Air Force (IAF) chief, who had in the past said that Atmanirbhar cannot come at the cost of the force, said that the air force has already ordered for 83 Tejas MK 1A and an order for 97 more was in the pipeline.
He added that the IAF was looking at procuring six-seven squadrons each of the Tejas MK 2 aircraft and the 5th generation AMCA (Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft) fighters.
“The IAF signed a contract for 40 LCA MK1 in 2016. Today in 2024, we have so far received 38,” the air chief marshal said.
He said that it is important to have indigenous weapons systems to deal with any future security challenges. “The IAF should have the entire inventory produced in India by 2047.”
On the Tejas MK 2 project, the officer said the aircraft is supposed to take its first flight next year in October and that it is supposed to be inducted by 2028 as per the timelines.
This year, 27 December is supposed to be the end of R&D for LCA Mk II, he added.
He said that if these timelines are met and the Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA) contract is signed parallelly, the air force will be able to keep the fighter strength intact.
There would be an issue if these timelines are not met, the IAF chief said, adding that the air force would have to look for alternatives.
The IAF expects around Rs 56,000 crore towards capital procurements in the next one year. Big ticket procurements include LCA Mk-1A and Mk-II. Missiles and radar systems will also be inducted by the air force.
“It is a known fact that Tejas has been delayed. There is no doubt. There is also a promise that the production rate will be increased to 24 aircraft per year. If that promise is kept, I think the delays can be caught up with. The first aim is not to let our aircraft strength go down,” he said.
As certain aircraft were reaching their end lives, the air force chief said, it was important for the new aircraft to be inducted parallelly, so the squadrons do not go below 30.
The IAF presently has 31 squadrons, much below the prescribed number of 42.
“Unless you have private industry coming in and chipping in, I don’t thjnk we can continue relying only on one agency. HAL will also have its own limitations when it comes to what it can do in a (certain) timeframe,” he said, adding that the country “needs to have private industry chipping in and coming in in a big way to help out production challenges”.
He said that the air force does not have a problem with HAL. “I personally don’t believe that an organisation doesn’t want to do something and is giving excuses. There are genuine problems that the HAL also faces. But it is also true that the work is pending and they have not been able to deliver despite the problems,” he asserted.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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