BENGALURU: Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal AP Singh has said his confidence in defence PSU Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) continues to erode over its failure to fix delays in delivery and upgrades to the light combat aircraft Tejas.
“You have to alleviate (our) worries and make us more confident. At the mom-ent, I am just not confident of HAL, which is a very wrong thing to happen,” Singh said in a video shot on Monday, coinciding with the start of Aero India 2025 in Bengaluru. “I can tell you (HAL) what our requirements and worries are,” he can be heard saying, purportedly referring to the PSU. His remarks questioning the PSU’s efficiency have stirred a row.
HAL attributes delays to sanctions clamped after 1998 nuclear test
Although this isn’t the first time the IAF chief has slammed HAL over not adhering to timelines, his remarks questioning the defence PSU’s efficiency have stirred controversy. HAL has attributed the delays to sanctions clamped on India after the 1998 nuclear tests. CMD D K Sunil said the PSU would catch up with the timelines set for the project, initiated in 1984, and the additional orders it is anticipating.
HAL, which came in for criticism from previous IAF chiefs too, said Tuesday it was confident of “delivering at least 11 Tejas-Mk1A aircraft to IAF by March-end”. This is part of an 83-aircraft contract. Multiple people associated with the project have hinted that HAL views the aircraft as being the Aeronautical Development Agency’s baby. The argument is that the latter designed and developed the fighter while HAL began working only after a push for Make-in-India post-2014.
On how the HAL leadership viewed repeated criticism from the air chief, Sunil said, “I have to put it in context. You know that we (India) faced sanctions after our nuclear test in 1998, so we had to build things from the ground up. A lot of work has gone into it. The delays are not simply attributable to, you know, laziness.” He said technical issues had been resolved. “The concern of the air chief is understandable as his squadron strength is reducing. We have promised that we will have all these structures ready. And we have conveyed this during multiple meetings at different levels,” the CMD said.
He said HAL was pushing American firm GE to consider an 80% transfer of technology (ToT) deal for the GE-414 engine that will power the upgraded variants of the Tejas, and probably India’s fifth-generation aircraft AMCA, which is under development.
Sunil said HAL had seen significant growth in its order book, which stands at more than Rs 1.3 lakh crore as of Dec 2024, thanks to several major contracts in the past year, including orders for 12 Su-30MKI aircraft for IAF, 240 AL31FP engines, and multiple helicopter orders for various defence forces.