BENGALURU: The delay in the delivery of Tejas fighter aircraft by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has elicited a “no confidence” comment from Indian Air Force (IAF) chief Air Chief Marshal AP Singh.
On Monday, while inspecting an aircraft at Aero India 2025, Singh was heard telling HAL officials, "I can only tell you what our requirements and our worries are... At the moment, I am just not confident of HAL, which is a very wrong thing to happen." The video was captured and posted by defence news channel NationalDefence.
The IAF has been banking on timely deliveries of the Light Combat Aircraft Tejas, which is meant to replace the decommissioned squadrons of MiG fighters. The depletion has been worrisome as the IAF is operating around 31 combat squadrons, with the sanctioned strength being 42 squadrons.
In his conversation, Singh goes on to say that things do not seem to be in "mission mode". "HAL is our own company, we all have worked there... I have also served there... I find that we are just not in mission mode... everything is ho jaayega [it will happen]."
The IAF chief's primary complaint has been delays in the deliveries of Tejas Mk1A fighter jets.
"I was promised that when I come here in February, we will have 11 Mk1As ready minus the engine. And not a single one is ready yet... mazaa nai aa raha hai yaar [not liking it]," Singh is heard saying, with a HAL official later commenting that the officer's remarks have been "duly noted".
Singh said that while he was pushing for "drastic change" as it was needed in the larger "system", he wasn't trying to point fingers at "individuals".
"I cannot point a finger because three fingers are pointing at me," the senior officer says. "There are so many places where we have also gone wrong. Because as the product takes time, the [requirements] keep changing."
Singh has raised the issue earlier as well. In January, while delivering a lecture, he had said that "technology delayed is technology denied".
"Production agencies have to invest in their advanced manufacturing processes so that the speed can increase. Upskilling their manpower and whatever they do, the scale of the production has to go up. Tejas, we started inducting in 2016,” he said, adding that the history of Tejas should be seen 1984 onwards when the aircraft was conceived.
"First (Tejas) aircraft flew in 2001 — 17 years. Then, the induction started another 15 years later — 2016. Today, we are in 2024, I do not have the first 40 aircraft also. This is the production capability. We need to do something. I am very convinced that we need to get some private players in. We need to have competition. We need to have multiple sources available so that people are wary of losing their orders. Otherwise, things will not change,” he said in an address at the 21st Subroto Mukerjee Seminar.
"R&D loses its relevance if it is not able to meet the timeline. Time is a very important thing. We need to give greater leeway to the researchers. There will be failures, let's not be scared of failures. I think we are losing a lot of time because we are scared of failure...Defence is one sector where time is very important. If we don't meet the timeline, technology is of no use," he said.
He had brought out that the force is yet to receive all 40 Tejas Mk1 jets ordered in 2010. The Indian Air Force currently operates only 36 Tejas Mk1 jets with deliveries of four pending.
The next in line is 83 Tejas Mk1A jets, upgraded variants of the fighters currently in service, ordered in 2021. The delays in the deliveries of the Mk1A variants have been attributed largely to a hold-up in engine supplies from the US manufacturer General Electric, which was said to be facing its own supply-chain issues.
Issues regarding the delay in supply of the engines have been raised by the Indian leadership with the US.
