We need to add 35-40 fighter jets every year: IAF chief-OxBig News Network

Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh. File
| Photo Credit: ANI

The Indian Air Force needs to add 35 to 40 fighter jets every year to fill the shortage in numbers, Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh said on Friday (February 28, 2025). He added that the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) had promised to produce 24 Tejas Mark-1A jets next year.

While pitching for self-reliance, he said the promised production rate wasn’t enough and there was a need to look for options to fill the void. In this regard, the Air Chief called for greater involvement of private sector.

In related remarks, acknowledging that the current defence acquisition processes were too lengthy, Secretary-Research and Development and Chairman, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Samir V. Kamat said at another event that by the end of the year, there could be a new, faster acquisition cycle in place. The Defence Minister had declared 2025 as the “year of reforms” in the Ministry of Defence and the most important reform would be to speed up the acquisition cycle, he said. “Defence Secretary is the one who is handling this and I am sure by the year-end, we will have a much faster acquisition cycle.”

“We need to add two squadrons per year, which means we need 35-40 planes per year. The capacity cannot come overnight… HAL has promised to produce 24 Tejas Mark-1A jets next year, I am happy with that,” Air Chief Marshal Singh said while speaking at the Chanakya Dialogues conclave. “This target is not impossible.”

“We can get 12-18 jets per year from private participation… I can take a vow I will not buy anything from outside. But we are badly off in terms of numbers. The promised numbers are slow, there will be a need to look for something to fill these voids.”

The IAF is currently at 31 fighter squadrons as against the sanctioned strength of 42.5 squadrons. While deliveries of the Light Combat Aircraft-Mk1A were delayed, several of the existing fighter jets – Jaguar, MIG-29UPG and Mirage-2000 – will also be phased out by end of this decade.

To a question on the likely force structure of the IAF by 2047, the Air Chief did not predict a major difference in platforms but said “the technology would change obviously”. “I foresee that we will have all aircraft at least above 4.5 generation. The simplest aircraft we will have will be a Rafale or an upgraded Su-30. All other aircraft will be better than that. There will be interoperability in terms of ground forces, land forces, and maritime forces in terms of communication networks, ‘op’ networks that we use. We should be able to talk to each other, transfer data, transfer targets on the fly. That is what my vision is.”

Elaborating further, Air Chief Marshal Singh stated that the IAF will be a bigger force in terms of fighters, “in terms of enablers and technology-wise”. “We will hopefully be at par with what we have around the world.”

India wants to be an aerospace power by 2047, he said, adding: “Our interest in Space has always been there. Our enablers are in Space, like GPS, communications and so on. We have already a taken step towards educating our people to be more Space-oriented.”

Stressing on the support to indigenisation, he said home-grown systems were their first priority. “Even if we can get homegrown technology that is 90% of the capability of foreign platforms, I am okay,” he said, adding that to sustain a prolonged conflict, we must have the capability to ensure a steady supply of weapons and equipment.

Failures in R&D 

Flagging an important challenge in research and development, Dr. Kamat noted that for cutting-edge R&D and investment in new technologies, the risk of failure was very high. In our country, risk appetite from the private sector was lacking, he said while highlighting the Finance Minister’s announcement that 25% of DRDO’s R&D budget will be used to fund R&D in the private sector and academia.

“How we handle this failure is going to be the most important reform that we need to do. For that, we need a separate chapter in Government Financial Rules (GFR) which allows for failure. The current GFR treats R&D as acquisition. If I have given you money, you have to deliver me something,” he said, speaking at the Business Standard conclave on Thursday. The government had understood the problem and a committee was set up to look at how the GFR can be changed or a chapter added so that failures in R&D can be handled, he added.