In a major development, the US State Department has notified the US Congress about the Biden Administration’s decision to manufacture GE-F 414 jet engines through full transfer of technology (ToT) route in India for LCA Mark II aircraft to be produced by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). The notification was sent to Congress on July 28 and the deal will stand approved after 30 days as per requirement.
PM Narendra Modi at White House with Bidens on June 22, 2023.
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The MoU between GE and HAL was signed on June 22, 2023 in Washington during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s three day visit to the US. It is understood that the US Congress will approve the engine manufacturing deal as it is in no way detrimental to American national security interests.
While the Modi government is tight-lipped about the entire deal, it is understood that the GE F 414 engines will be used to power the LCA MK II, the AMCA Mark I and Twin Engine Deck Based Fighter (TEDBF) for Indian aircraft carrier developed by Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) of the DRDO. It is learnt that at least 100 engines will be required to produce LCA Mark II fighter with some 200 engines needed for twin engine AMCA Mark I and TEDBF at the turn of this decade. The ADA is expected to develop the prototype of LCA Mark II by the end of 2024 or early 2025 with the program going on as per schedule.
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LCA Mark II model
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According to the joint statement issued at the end of PM Modi’s June visit to the US, both the leaders have committed their governments to working collaboratively and expeditiously to support the advancement of “this unprecedented co-production and technology transfer proposal.” While the LCA Mark I is powered by GE-404 engines, the much powerful GE-414 engine powers the multiple combat proven US F-18 multirole jet fighter.
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According to the joint statement issued at the end of PM Modi’s June visit to the US, both the leaders have committed their governments to working collaboratively and expeditiously to support the advancement of “this unprecedented co-production and technology transfer proposal.” While the LCA Mark I is powered by GE-404 engines, the much powerful GE-414 engine powers the multiple combat proven US F-18 multirole jet fighter.
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Washington watchers told HT that the US Congress has a window of 30 days to raise clarifications if any to the deal and will be approved by the end of this month. Given that India-US are close allies and partners in QUAD and in the Indo-Pacific, the notification to US Congress is seen as a formality as the bilateral relationship has had bipartisan consensus since the turn of the century.
The GE-F-414 deal was worked out by National Security Advisor Ajit Dioval with his US counterpart Jake Sullivan during the inaugural dialogue of initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) on January 31, 2023 in Washington.
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
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Home/India News/Biden administration notifies US Congress about GE-F414 engine deal with India
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