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"Today, I make an appeal to our young scientists, talented youth, engineers, professionals, and all departments of the government that we should have our own jet engines for our made-in-India fighter jets,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his Independence Day address to the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort on August 15.

  His clarion call for mission-mode efforts, is timely and needs to be backed by a clear mapping of capabilities, requirements, and timelines to develop a jet engine.

  A jet engine is the pinnacle of military technology and a prized asset owned by only a handful of countries. The global fighter jet engine market, valued at $11.3 billion in 2022, is projected to grow to about $16.5 billion by 2032, at a compound annual rate of 5.7 per cent, according to Custom Market Insights. Control over this market rests largely with a small group of companies and nations.

  India has advanced in several high-tech domains, from ballistic and cruise missiles to its space and nuclear programmes. It has also designed and built an indigenous fighter jet and is now preparing a fifth-generation aircraft programme. Yet, a homegrown aero engine has remained elusive. China, despite major strides in building its military-industrial complex, has also struggled with engine development — underscoring the steep technological challenge involved. While India has announced ambitious plans for engine manufacturing and codevelopment, its current trajectory may still fall short of achieving true aatmanirbharta in defence.

  With the current line-up of fighter procurement, both fourth- and fifth-generation, India’s military aerospace sector is likely to remain dependent on France and the United States (US) for much of this century. For a nation that champions strategic autonomy and aspires to be developed by 2047, such reliance in a critical domain creates dependencies that risk constraining those ambitions.

  It’s not just the jet engine that remains elusive. Power plants for main battle tanks, infantry combat vehicles, and naval ships face the same challenge. So far, there is complete dependence on foreign suppliers. While some localisation of parts and components has taken place in recent years, the larger reliance on the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) continues through the lifetime of each platform.

  India’s first indigenous fighter

  India’s pursuit of an indigenous fighter dates back to the mid-1950s, when the HF (Hindustan Fighter) -24 Marut project was championed by the country’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Designed by renowned German engineer Dr Kurt Tank, the HF-24 was inducted into the Indian Air Force in the late 1960s with the No. 10 ‘Daggers’ squadron.

  Despite its design limitations, the Marut earned the respect of those who flew it and played a key role in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. From the outset, however, the aircraft was hampered by its underpowered licence-built Orpheus 703 engine — the more powerful engine that had been promised never materialised. This shortcoming was a major reason why the Marut was inducted only in limited numbers and phased out relatively early, by the late 1980s.

  Building on the experience of the Marut, India launched the light combat aircraft (LCA) programme — later christened “Tejas” — alongside a parallel effort to develop an indigenous engine under the Kaveri project. Sanctioned by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) in 1989, the Kaveri programme ran for three decades and incurred an expenditure of ~2,035.56 crore before being shut down. According to information provided to Parliament, the Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE), a Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) laboratory, developed nine full prototype engines and four core engines under the project. In all, 3,217 hours of testing was carried out, including altitude trials and flying test bed (FTB) evaluations.

  The current lineup

  In the absence of an indigenous engine, the General Electric (GE) F404-IN20, with a thrust of 84 kN, was chosen to power the LCA. This engine drives the 40 LCA Mk1 jets currently in service, the 83 LCA Mk1A on order, and the additional order for 97 Mk1A jets recently cleared. Deliveries, however, faced repeated delays, which GE attributed to supply-chain problems and the challenge of restarting a production line that had been dormant for five years. By 2016, GE had supplied 65 F404-IN20 engines for the 40 Tejas jets. With no new orders at the time, the line was shut down. After nearly two years of delay, state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) finally received the first engine in April this year and the second in July.

  HAL Chairman and Managing Director D K Sunil recently said that 12 F404 engines would be delivered this year. In February he had assured that the current order for 83 Mk1A jets would be completed within three and a half years as scheduled, while the additional order for 97 jets would be fulfilled by FY32, with production ramped up to 24 aircraft a year.

  An attempt was made to revive the Kaveri engine for the LCA with French assistance as part of the 36-Rafale deal signed in 2016, but no agreement was reached. In recent years, however, the Kaveri programme has been given a new lease of life for a different purpose, with a derivative now being developed to power an indigenous unmanned combat aerial vehicle. FTB trials for this derivative were recently conducted in Russia.

  Expressing displeasure over the delays, Indian Air Force (IAF) chief, Air Chief Marshal A P Singh, warned that research & development loses its relevance if it fails to meet timelines.

  Alongside the F404, another GE engine — the F414, with a thrust of 98 kN — has been selected for the LCA Mk2. The higher thrust will allow the aircraft to carry greater payloads and deliver improved performance. It is intended to replace the Mirage-2000s, Jaguars, and MiG-29s in service. India and the US have announced that the F414 will be licence-manufactured in India by HAL. The deal is expected to provide India access to key manufacturing technologies and industrial processes in engine manufacturing, strengthening the domestic aerospace ecosystem.

  An earlier engine development effort between GE Aerospace and HAL in 2012 had pegged technology transfer at about 58 per cent, according to officials familiar with the matter. Under the current agreement, this is expected to rise to around 80 per cent, with the first engine likely to roll out within three years of contract signing. Except for a small component, the F414-INS6 engine would be entirely manufactured in India, according to several reports citing defence officials.

  Two years ago, a list of manufacturing processes and technologies identified for transfer to India was finalised. These include special corrosion-resistant coatings; casting, machining, and coating for single-crystal turbine blades; casting, machining, and coating of nozzle guide vanes and other hot-section components; blisk machining; forging and powder-metallurgy discs for turbines; machining of thin-walled titanium casings; laser-drilling technology for combustors; bottle boring of shafts; friction-inertia welding for fans and afterburners; polymer matrix composites for bypass ducts; and ceramic matrix composites for 

low-pressure nozzle guide vane flaps.

  What was described as an “almost done” deal in June 2023, however, remains unsigned, with reports suggesting a significant upward revision in cost — as much as 50 per cent. HAL recently said the technical negotiations were complete, and the cost negotiations were expected to conclude within this financial year.

  The future

  Beyond the LCA variants, India’s fifth-generation fighter programme — the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (Amca) — is under development and at least a decade away. The CCS had approved the project in March 2024.

  The Amca is a 25-tonne, twin-engine stealth aircraft designed with an internal weapons bay, diverterless supersonic intake, the capacity to carry 1,500 kg of payload internally and 5,500 kg externally, and 6,500 kg of internal fuel. Yet, the project is already running behind schedule in the global context. China has fielded two stealth fighters — the J-20 and the J-35 — and it recently unveiled two more advanced fifth-generation jets, described by some observers as sixth-generation. Adding to the challenge, Pakistan is set to acquire 40 J-35s from China, a move that could complicate India’s security calculus in the near term. While the fighter shortfall poses a pressing challenge in the near to medium term, the engine dependence is likely to remain a much longer-term liability.

  With no other viable options, the Amca’s development phase will proceed with the GE F414 engine, with at least two initial squadrons designated as Mk1. A new 110–120 kN class engine is planned to be codeveloped with a foreign OEM. As this engine will deliver greater thrust, the Amca Mk2 will be a larger aircraft, just as the LCA Mk2 grew in size over its predecessor. In 2021-22, India and France held advanced talks for such a codevelopment deal that was said to be “months away” but ultimately collapsed. Since then, both GE and Rolls-Royce have submitted detailed proposals for the project.

  The signals since have been mixed. During Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Paris in July 2023, the two countries announced plans for codeveloping a new engine, with the Aeronautical Development Agency, GTRE, and Safran entering talks to finalise specifications and costs. However, the deal is yet to be done. Once concluded, the engine development itself is expected to take 12-13 years.

  Speaking in January 2024 on the modalities under discussion with France, then Indian envoy to Paris Jawed Ashraf stressed that what India sought was not just a transfer of manufacturing technology but genuine collaboration in the design phase, including metallurgical aspects. “Safran is fully willing to do it with 100 per cent transfer of technology in design, development, certification, production, and so on,” he said.

  The higher the transfer of technology, the better. But two realities must be acknowledged. First, the idea of 100 per cent technology transfer is largely a myth. Second, the real question is how much of that technology the recipient country is capable of absorbing. These technologies, developed over decades through multiple iterations, keep advanced nations ahead of others. A few hundred million dollars — or even a billion dollars — is hardly enough incentive for them to part with such prized capabilities.

  Outlining the challenges ahead, DRDO Chairman and R&D Secretary Samir V Kamat said in January this year that India was currently investing only 5 per cent of its defence budget in R&D — a figure that, he argued, should rise to 15 per cent. Achieving this would require annual spending of $4-5 billion, he noted. In addition, a range of new facilities must be established – subsystem testing centres, a high-altitude test facility, an FTB, and advanced manufacturing facilities.

  These facilities are essential prerequisites for developing advanced technologies such as single-crystal turbine blades, powder-metallurgy discs, and ceramic matrix composites for static parts, among others. Crucially, many of these technologies will not be shared by OEMs under transfer-of-technology agreements, making indigenous development the only path forward. 

The F404-GE-103 turbofan engine developed for the Boeing T-7A Red Hawk advanced trainer (Photo: GE Aerospace)

  The outlook

  According to DRDO officials, a separate indigenous engine development effort will run parallel to the codevelopment project to design a fully homegrown engine. While this is a welcome move, there is a catch. The Indian Air Force’s current plans envisage around 120 LCA Mk2s and at least 120 Amcas, in addition to 220 LCA Mk1 variants — a combined fleet of nearly 350 aircraft powered by General Electric’s F-series engines. That would place more than half the Air Force on a single foreign engine type. Added to this are another 80-plus Amcas that would fly with the new engine likely codeveloped with Safran. As India’s only fifth-generation fighter, Amca numbers are expected to grow further in the future. Given that fighter aircraft typically remain in service for 40-50 years, the LCAs and Amcas inducted over the coming decades are likely to remain operational well into the 2080s and even the 2090s — implying continued engine dependence for generations to come.

  Given the current lineup, the entirely new engine envisaged will need to match the 110-120 kN class powering the Amca Mk2. Alternatively, India must plan a futuristic fighter — or Amca variants — designed around the new engine, which would represent genuine self-reliance. Without such planning, the country risks building an engine with no aircraft to power.

  One official observed that the private sector must be brought in to infuse both efficiency and capital. For this, a clear policy road map ensuring a genuine level playing field is essential — something still lacking today. The recently adopted execution model for Amca production serves as a test case to work out a framework that is both viable and acceptable for future projects.

  Interpreting content

  For years, the percentage of indigenous content has been the benchmark for assessing technology transfer. Anything above 50 per cent — sometimes up to 70 per cent — was considered “home-made”. The flaw in this logic lies in the remaining 20, 30, or 40 per cent, which has often contained the critical technologies and ensured dependence on the OEM. While this framework worked up to a point, it has now reached its limits. It is time to invert the yardstick of assessment, placing the focus on where the real technology resides rather than just the overall percentage of local content.

  In the rotary segment, all indigenous helicopters manufactured by HAL  — the Advanced Light Helicopter, Light Combat Helicopter and Light Utility Helicopter  — are powered by the Shakti engine codeveloped with France. An agreement has already been signed to develop a variant of the Shakti to power the Indian Multi-Role Helicopter (IMRH) being developed by HAL. The 12.5-tonne IMRH is expected to be ready by production in the early 2030s and is meant to replace the Mi-17s in service. So, for the foreseeable future the military rotary engine space will be dominated by the Shakti series of engines.

  For a long time, India had not procured any major offensive platforms from the US. Inductions of the M777 Ultra-Light Howitzers from 2018, 145 of which are in service, marked the first offensive firepower followed by the induction of the AH-64E Apache helicopter heavy attack helicopter in IAF beginning 2019. Despite several attempts the US couldn’t crack the Indian fighter market. The first attempt was the F-16 and F/A-18 fielded in the IAF’s Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft tender in the late 2000s and subsequently scrapped in 2015. The F/A-18 for the Indian Navy’s tender for 26 carrier-borne fighter jets in which Rafale-M was selected in July 2023. Two US jets have been offered to IAF’s Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft bid issued in 2018 tender. The formal process hasn’t even commenced and given the current fighter crisis in the IAF, it is not clear how it will play out.

  With the jet engines, India has firmly tied itself into the US military ecosystem, into a much more critical domain than a fighter, the heart that powers it. This association will be spread over several decades transcending several administrations and governments on both sides.

  Security strategic autonomy

  China’s engine development offers a possible template. Despite repeated failures and external embargoes in its early years, Beijing kept investing in R&D and has now achieved a breakthrough with the WS-10 engine powering its frontline fourth- and fifth-generation fighters. A key reform was unifying its fragmented R&D units under one umbrella. 

  Several small engine development initiatives — for UAVs and smaller ships such as patrol vessels — have been announced recently. This is the moment to consolidate these efforts: Bring stakeholders together, commit adequate budgets, and lay out a timebound road map to achieve true indigenisation in engine technology.

  The Prime Minister’s call, therefore, is timely; it must translate into concrete, actionable steps for India to secure its strategic autonomy.