NEW DELHI: The defence ministry’s annual report has set out the induction timeline for the Indian Air Force's second tranche of indigenous Tejas fighters, with deliveries of 97 LCA Mk1A aircraft scheduled between September 2027 and September 2033, even as not a single jet from the first order placed five years ago has been handed over.
The Rs 62,370-crore contract with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), signed in September last year, covers 68 single-seat fighters and 29 twin-seaters.
That schedule rests on a programme that has slipped repeatedly. HAL is yet to deliver any of the 83 Tejas Mk1A fighters ordered under a Rs 48,000-crore contract signed in February 2021, deliveries of which were to have begun in March 2024. Supply disruptions at General Electric held up the F404 IN20 engines, and software validation and radar trial problems caused a further slip. Completion of the 83-jet order has since been pushed to 2031.
HAL chairman Ravi Kota told the company's Q4 FY26 earnings call that handovers would begin between August and September 2026, once engine supply stabilised.
The delay matters for an air force that is down to 29 fighter squadrons, its lowest in six decades, against a sanctioned strength of 42.5. The last two MiG 21 Bison squadrons retired in September last year. The Mk1A programme is central to arresting that shortfall.
The annual report also revisits the state of military integration, it says 29 per cent of jointness and integration deliverables have been accomplished and 35 per cent of planned joint doctrines completed.
It points to Operation Sindoor as having "aptly highlighted that jointness is the need of the hour", and calls theatre-isation imperative to meet future security challenges. An integrated roadmap for the remaining reforms has been prepared and presented to Rajnath Singh, covering operational readiness, capability development, maintenance, administration, human resource management and the legal aspects of integration.
The blueprint for Integrated Theatre Commands is meanwhile moving through the ministry ahead of a Cabinet Committee on Security decision, with three sets of recommendations sent for vetting, as reported earlier.
The proposed structure looks at three commands focused on China, Pakistan and the maritime domain, with the Northern Theatre headed by an Army officer, the Western Theatre by an IAF officer and the Maritime Theatre by a Navy officer.
