What is the issue of delay in defense projects
What is the issue of delay in defense projects? Which defense projects are facing delays of years? Which officers have raised the issue of delay in defense projects before? What steps have the governments taken regarding this? Let’s know…
Amidst the worldwide discussion on weapons made in India, Air Force Chief Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh has raised the issue of delay in their production. This is the second time in the last four months that the Air Force Chief has raised the issue of delay in defense projects.have become vocal. Earlier, the current Chief of Defense Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan had also said something similar in September last year. He had said that India’s defense acquisition process is so slow that it is very difficult for the armed forces to adopt technology at the rate they want.
What is the issue of delay in defense projects? Which defense projects are facing delays of years? Which officers have raised the issue of delay in defense projects before? What steps have the governments taken regarding this? Let’s know…
How much delay in defense projects?
Complaints of delay in defense projects in India are not new. In 2014, the Ministry of Defense released a list in which those of the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) were Information was given about projects which had been delayed for a long time. Some of these projects are still not completed. These include the country’s first indigenous light combat aircraft (LCA) Tejas to the aero engine Kaveri.
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Which project is running with how much delay?
Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas MK1 and MK2
This project was approved in 1983. The deadline for completion was set in 1994. Due to many restrictions and supply problems, this project is constantly getting delayed.
The first two aircraft of the LCA Mk-1 squadron were manufactured in Sulur in July 2016. That is, it took 33 years to manufacture only the fighter jets.
Tejas Mk-1 and Tejas Mk-1A were intended to gradually replace the old MiG-21 fighter jets serving in the Indian Air Force. At the same time, Tejas Mk-II was designed to replace the MiG-29, Mirage and Jaguar fighter planes were to be replaced. All these planes will start being phased out from the next decade. In such a situation, the Air Force should have received the delivery of Tejas MK-1 and MK-II much earlier, so that from training the pilots to bringing them into active service, they could be brought.
What is the reason for the delay in the Tejas project?
project is stuck due to the absence of indigenous engine and dependence on foreign technology and its parts. After India’s second nuclear test in 1998, many sanctions were imposed by the US. In such a situation, there was a huge problem in the production of fighter jet engines.There was a lot of delay in getting spare parts. In 2013, the then DRDO Director General VK Saraswat had said that US sanctions had pushed India’s Tejas project back by two decades.
Due to these restrictions, all suppliers broke the agreements and European firms also did not cooperate. This forced the design of Tejas to be modified to use indigenous technology and a new production facility to be built. This also led to a huge increase in the cost of the project.
Some reports claimed that the Tejas fighter jets that were made had about 53 flaws, which could prove costly for the Air Force in the war zone. It took a lot of time for DRDO and HAL to remove these flaws. American company General Electrics
Despite the agreement, the Indian Air Force delayed the supply of its GE-404 engines. India could get its first engines only in 2025.
In 2015, the CAG report related to this project revealed that due to the delay, the Air Force has suffered a loss of about Rs 20 thousand crores, because it had to replace its old engines with new ones.
A lot of money has been spent to increase the temporary use of fighter aircraft.
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Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA)The project was named. However, this agreement made in 2007 could not be finalized in the further stages in 2018. While Russia alone developed its fifth generation Sukhoi-57 stealth fighter jet during this timeWhile the US has prepared the Indian Air Force’s Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), introduced in 2010, India has recently moved forward with the introduction of its Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA).
How delay in the project?
The design of AMCA was finalised in Aero India 2015. Apart from this, a deadline of six months was set to find a partner for its engine manufacturing. However, there were continuous delays in this.In 2018, DRDO’s Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) moved towards building the prototype. However, the project got the approval of the Cabinet Committee on Security Affairs in 2024. The AMCA project was furthered in May 2025 after Operation Sindoor in India.