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India closes in on its first homegrown fighter jet engine
PM urged India’s defence ecosystem to deliver an indigenous fighter jet powered by an Indian engine in 2025. The system has now moved to specific timelines.
India’s fighter jet engine quest has quietly entered a decisive phase. As Executive Editor Shishir Gupta explains in conversation with anchor Aayesha Varma on Hindustan Times’ Point Blank, the combination of a Safran–DRDO engine JV, revived indigenous programmes, and private sector entry has turned Narendra Modi’s 2025 call for a home-grown fighter with an Indian engine from rhetoric into a real, time-bound project.
From Independence Day slogan to concrete milestones
In his 2025 Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Modi urged India’s defence ecosystem to deliver an indigenous fighter jet powered by an Indian engine. A year on, Gupta argues, the system has moved beyond speeches to specific decisions and timelines.
On the airframe side, bids for the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) have brought the private sector to the forefront. Three major players - Tata, Bharat Forge and Larsen & Toubro (L&T), each with PSU partners - have been shortlisted to build India’s next-generation stealth-capable multirole fighter. On the propulsion side, the Safran–Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) joint venture has crystallised into a proposal now before the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), which is expected to be cleared before August 15, 2026.
This engine is planned at 120 kN thrust in its initial avatar, with nine prototypes to be built and certified, followed by an uprated 140 kN version intended to power future fifth- and even sixth-generation fighters. Crucially, India will hold 100 percent of the intellectual property on this powerplant - a sharp break from its historical dependence on Russia and France for engines whose “hot section”, crystal blade technology and source codes were never shared even under transfer-of-technology arrangements.
Safran–GTRE: breaking the technology ceiling
Gupta situates the Safran deal in a longer story of missed opportunities and gradual learning. India bought 36 Rafale fighters powered by Safran’s Snecma M88 engines, rated at 88 kN. Years ago, France had invited India to co-produce more M88s and even to join the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) engine programme alongside Germany and Spain. New Delhi “dilly-dallied”, as Gupta puts it, and those windows closed.
Instead, India continued to import Russian engines for its MiG and Sukhoi fleets, and French engines for Rafales - always without access to the critical sections and source codes that mark true sovereignty in propulsion. The more recent GE F404 and F414 deals with the United States, while significant, continue this pattern: engines and some manufacturing know-how, but no transfer of the most sensitive technologies.
The Safran–GTRE project is therefore politically and strategically loaded. If cleared as envisaged, it would place India in the small club of countries that can design and produce modern fighter engines - currently the US, UK, France and China, according to Gupta. It also offers operational leverage: in a crisis, India would no longer risk a foreign supplier “red flag” stalling spares or upgrades for its frontline jets.
The road will not be short. Nine prototypes must be built and put through exhaustive testing and certification, before the design is matured into the 140 kN class and integrated into AMCA and twin‑engine deck-based fighters for India’s aircraft carriers. But for Gupta, the mere fact that a credible, IP-owned programme is on the table is a “defining moment”.
China’s leap and India’s urgency
Any discussion of engines in Asia now inevitably turns to China. Gupta underlines that Beijing began with reverse engineering - of Russian military engines and American LEAP civil turbofans - before fielding its own WS-10 and now the WS-15.
The WS-15, he notes, is a 180 kN class engine powering the J‑20, China’s fifth-generation fighter, which has already been deployed at Hotan, Gargunsa (near Demchok), Lhasa and Nyingchi opposite Arunachal Pradesh after the PLA’s Ladakh transgressions in May 2020. Alongside powering platforms like the J‑10 and JF‑17, this propulsion progress has given China genuine long-range, high‑end air combat capability over the Tibetan plateau and the eastern sector.
Gupta’s assessment is blunt: “China is a player now. And that is a matter of serious concern to us.” India, he argues, cannot afford to be held back by slow-moving PSUs and procedural drag. The DRDO and defence production system will have to embrace faster decision-making, tighter timelines and fewer cost overruns if India is to remain competitive in the regional engine race.
Kaveri, GE engines and the AMCA balance
The Safran JV is only one pillar of India’s engine strategy. Gupta points out that DRDO and GTRE’s original Kaveri engine stalled at a modest 40 kN thrust - “hardly anything” for contemporary fighters - but has now been revived with an 80 kN target. The idea is to use Kaveri as a technology demonstrator and then scale up, learning by doing despite the enormous cost and labour demands of engine development—estimated at 10–15 billion dollars per modern design.
Parallelly, India is locked into US-powered jets for the near term. A contract for 212 GE F404 engines will feed the Tejas Mk1A/1A+ fleet, with nine engines already delivered but further supplies delayed by supply chain issues rather than political will. More strategically, New Delhi has agreed a GE–HAL joint production arrangement for the F414 engine - intended to power Tejas Mk2 and the first two AMCA squadrons - with an initially promised 100 percent transfer of technology now understood to be closer to 70 percent.
Here again, Gupta notes, the familiar ceiling: no source code, no hot section, no crystal blade technology. Reform within HAL, a heavily tasked PSU, is essential to make the F414 timeline meaningful. Around 99 engines are to be produced initially, but much depends on how quickly the joint venture moves from contract signing to actual work on the shop floor.
Taken together, Safran–GTRE, a revived Kaveri, and GE‑powered fighters give India a diversified portfolio, designed to ensure the Indian Air Force retains teeth even as it gropes toward engine sovereignty.
Missiles, drones and the fifth‑generation dilemma
The conversation ends by widening the lens. India today has no operational fifth-generation fighter, while China flies the J‑20. The Indian Air Force has pitched a demand for two squadrons of such jets, and options like the US F‑35 or Russia’s Su‑57 are under discussion. Yet Gupta stresses that the question is politically and technologically more complex than a simple shopping choice.
The Iran–US war, now in its sixth month, has demonstrated the vulnerability of expensive stealth platforms to relatively cheap heat‑seeking missiles, denting the aura of invincibility around fifth‑generation fighters. In that context, Gupta asks whether it is wise for India to sink scarce capital into manned stealth aircraft if they can be brought down by advanced missiles—be they J‑20s, F‑35s or Su‑57s.
Instead, he argues, the real debate within government is triangular:
Fifth‑generation fighters versus longer-range standoff missiles.
Manned combat aircraft versus unmanned combat air systems (UCAS) that supplement or, in some roles, replace them.
All of the above versus finite budgets.
Missiles and drones have already emerged as central to modern warfare, as Iran–US exchanges underline. For India, this means building deep inventories of precision missiles and unmanned systems alongside its fighter recapitalisation. Gupta is optimistic that the private defence sector - which is now involved across engines, aircraft and missiles - is driving a “revolution” that could, with PSU reform, make India not just self-reliant but a supplier of ammunition even to advanced powers like the US.
Against that backdrop, the Safran–GTRE engine is more than a technical programme. It is a test of whether India can cross the gold standard of jet engine design, unlock genuine strategic autonomy in airpower, and reshape its force structure for an era where stealth, standoff and unmanned systems coexist uneasily on crowded, contested battlefields.
