Indian navy spurns homemade jet in latest blow to Asia push for self reliance

BENGALURU/ NEW DELHI: India’s navy is in the hunt for a new foreign fighter jet after rejecting an indigenously made aircraft as too heavy, the latest sign of the struggle to get Asian militaries to buy locally to grow their defence industries.

The navy last month invited manufacturers to pitch for 57 planes for its aircraft carriers, a multi-billion dollar order the government had hoped would go to the state-run producers of India’s Tejas, a combat aircraft 33 years in the making.

India, South Korea, Taiwan and other Asian buyers are expected to intensify efforts this year to develop indigenous warplanes, military officials said, due to anxieties that the United States may be less engaged in the region under US President Donald Trump.

But their hopes of manufacturing state- of-the- art warplanes could still be decades away as countries need more time to master the technology, experts said.

“It’s been long on ambition short on success,” Richard A. Bitzinger, senior fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said of the drive.

“These things are being done because of techno-nationalism. They are done because these countries perceive of themselves as rising powers.”

As part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Make-in-India” campaign, scientists will showcase the Tejas warplane at an air show opening in Bengaluru today.

However, the jet remains a work in progress, with only three in service with the air force.

South Korea, supported by Indonesia, has multi-billion dollar plans to develop a twin- engined KF-X fighter jet, while Taiwan said this month it plans to build 66 jet trainer aircraft that could eventually help it manufacture a combat plane.

Cleared by the government in 1983, the Indian plane was meant to be the backbone of the air force due for induction in 1994.

Instead, it suffered years of delay with scientists trying to build the world’s most modern light combat aircraft from scratch, including the engine.

In December, the navy chief, Admiral Sunil Lanba, said the sea version of the plane was “not up to the mark” and it could not take off from an aircraft carrier once weapons were loaded. — Reuters