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![Tejas in flight](/sites/default/files/styles/crop_freeform/public/2025-01/aeroindia-1-indias_press_information_bureau-promo.jpg?itok=aURMb3kL)
The delta-wing Tejas is now in service, but the pace of development and production continues to disappoint Indian Air Force leaders.
Nothing illustrates the internal tension in India’s policy of industrial self-reliance quite like a decision about who will develop an advanced fighter engine to power a new indigenous stealth fighter expected to enter service within a decade.
A simple reading of the policy suggests this future jet engine—a generational equivalent to the Pratt & Whitney F135 or Shenyang WS-15—should come from an indigenous supplier, even though India’s state-owned Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) has fallen short on similar projects in the past.
- Western companies will develop the country’s future fighter engine core
- Procurement and competition reforms under review
Or India could accept something less than absolute industrial sovereignty to ensure that the goal can be achieved. Under this approach, the government would direct the GTRE to partner with a European or U.S. engine house to codevelop the advanced powerplant.
In the end, India has chosen the partnership, and it clarified the policy in sharp detail in early January.
“We propose that an international engine house should lead in the design and development of the core engine,” GTRE Director S.V. Ramana Murty said at a Centre for Air Power Studies seminar at the headquarters of the Indian Air Force Western Air Command in New Delhi on Jan. 7.
According to government policy, the foreign partner—be it GE Aerospace, Rolls-Royce or Safran Aircraft Engines—will develop the core of the new engine, including the high-temperature modules of the compressor, combustor and turbine, Murty said, and India’s domestic supply chain, led by the GTRE, will design the cold section, including the fan and low-pressure modules of the compressor and turbine.
The decision marks another bitter concession for an Indian aerospace industry with aspirations of Chinese-style self-sufficiency. In the early 1980s, China and India stood at roughly the same level of industrial skill and capacity; both relied mainly on foreign partners to design and build their modern weapon systems.
Since then, China’s defense industrial base has grown and developed dramatically. The country’s manufacturers now design and build advanced military aircraft from nose to tail, including such critical subsystems as engines, sensors and flight controls.
By contrast, India’s defense industry is lagging. The development of the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) Tejas light combat aircraft offers a classic example. New Delhi conceived of the project 40 years ago. It took 34 years for HAL to deliver the first operational fighter. Indian Air Force leaders remain frustrated by the slow rate of progress, especially with the trickle of Tejas deliveries since 2016.
“We should go back to 1984, when we conceived that aircraft,” Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh said at the Centre for Air Power Studies event. “The first aircraft flew in 2001—17 years later. Then, the induction [into operations] started another 15 years later, in 2016. Today we are in 2025. I do not have the first 40 aircraft. We need to do something.”
Simply increasing defense spending may not be a solution. India spends 2.4% of its GDP on defense, higher than China’s assessed 1.7% share, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Moreover, India’s annual defense outlays routinely outstrip the ability of its defense ministry to spend the money.
“There’s adequate money available for what we want to do,” India Defense Secretary Rajest Singh told the Centre for Air Power Studies gathering. “We need to have the pragmatism to go for the prioritized solutions that we need.”
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Another constraint on accelerating indigenous defense capability is the performance of the defense industry. In the 1980s, the Indian government intended to field the Tejas with two different engines, including an indigenous option. But the GTRE failed to deliver the local option. Instead, the GTX-35VS Kaveri turbofan is still in development and lacks the power to compete with the GE F404. Instead, the Defense Research Development Organization (DRDO), the GTRE’s parent agency, plans to use a modified version of the Kaveri to power the Ghatak, a demonstrator for a stealthy, uncrewed combat air vehicle.
The GTRE’s inability to deliver the Kaveri engine after 35 years of development offers a stark example. If forced to choose between a Western or indigenous supplier, the military’s default choice is Western. Such conditions render the “Self-Reliant India” policy—known as “Atmanirbhar Bharat” in Hindi—difficult to implement. Policymakers acknowledge the military’s concerns.
“I always feel that when it comes to the air force, Atmanirbhar Bharat is sometimes a source of as much angst as it is a source of commitment or passion,” Defense Secretary Singh said. “There is a feeling that sometimes there is a trade-off with capability, and I don’t blame you for that. The fact is that in India, we’ve not been able to develop many critical technologies—jet engines were mentioned, [but also] radars, etc.”
The capacity shortfall runs deep. Assembly lines for fighters, helicopters and transports often make headlines. But delivering modern weapon systems takes an ecosystem of skills and capabilities. Air Chief Marshal Singh described assembly lines as “shining stars” and the missing pieces of India’s industrial ecosystem as the “galaxy that we need.”
The point was dramatized by India’s lack of local access to a facility and a flying testbed designed to simulate high-altitude conditions for jet engines. India instead relies on a facility in Moscow, operated by Russia’s Central Institute of Aviation Motors (CIAM). Access to that facility became difficult after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
“For the last almost nine months, we [have been] begging CIAM to give us time slots,” Murty said. “They are not giving [them to us] because of the geopolitical situation. They want to test their engines.”
Murty listed other necessary industrial infrastructure that is lacking for Indian-built aircraft engines, including a flying testbed and a 50,000-ton hydraulic press to forge blisks used by modern turbofans.
Capacity shortfalls are not the only problem for India’s industrial base. Notoriously long timelines are built into India’s procurement process, with years elapsing between milestones in the traditional tender process. Internal reform proposals are working their way through that same bureaucratic process but could emerge later this year.
“The procurement side we will tackle over the course of the next six months to one year, both in terms of the process timelines and in terms of the procedures themselves,” Defense Secretary Singh said.
At the same time, government reform proposals also are looking outward. India’s defense sector is dominated by state-owned companies called Defense Public Sector Undertakings (DPSU) such as HAL and Bharat Electronics Ltd. The homegrown products of the DRDO’s network of design institutes rarely transition to these organizations to enter production. Instead, the DPSUs rely mainly on license-build agreements with Western companies. The concentration of work assigned to the DPSUs limits opportunities for more innovative privately owned companies, which government-owned laboratories often view as competitors instead of partners.
“The advantage that incumbents have in our system and the entry barriers that we create for new entrants—that is the other area that we really need to tackle,” said Singh, unveiling another reform proposal for the defense ministry.
The Indian government boasts that the country supports the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world. Its defense ministry wants to find ways to make the defense market attractive for them to compete in.
“Many of them want to get into this space,” the defense secretary added. “We need to give them a level playing field, which we always talk about. We need to give them visibility in terms of orders, and then they will be able to provide the solutions that we need to move further, faster on some of these critical technologies that have been lacking in India so far.”