Thursday 30 / October / 2025
India’s aerospace ambitions are revving louder than ever, and the engine beneath those ambitions is finally getting its own dedicated surge of national focus.
With plans to spend approximately $7.44 billion (INR 654 billion) on fighter jet engines by 2035, India has placed propulsion at the heart of its future air power strategy.
It isn’t just a budgetary figure, but a declaration of intent: India will own the sky not through imports alone, but through innovation crafted at home.
This dynamic push is perfectly timed. Across India's defence modernisation runway, a fleet of future-ready fighter jet programs is being taxied for takeoff.
From the advanced Tejas Mk2 to the stealthy AMCA, and from unmanned combat aircraft to upgraded fighters defending India’s borders, the plan calls for an impressive 1,100 engines. Each engine is not merely hardware, but a miniature lightning bolt of national capability.
S. V. Ramana Murthy, the energy behind this transformative thrust and director of the Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE), is leading the propulsion revolution.
He stands at the epicentre of India’s determined drive to build a home-grown engine lineup that can compete in the global arena. His vision rests on a growing ecosystem where infrastructure, emerging industry, private participation, and international partnerships blend into a collaborative symphony of innovation.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) is coordinating its mission with equal enthusiasm. Targeting a 42-squadron strength by 2035, the IAF envisions around 450 fighter jets patrolling the vast territorial expanse and safeguarding India’s interests along its borders.
These jets are not only symbols of sovereign strength, but, with home-built engines powering them, they become symbols of sovereign self-reliance.
Among the shining stars of India’s New Air Age is the Light Combat Aircraft Tejas, which has already carved its place in the skies. Its next generation, the Tejas Mk2, is set to upgrade that success story further.
Discussions with the United States’ General Electric for its powerful F414 engine, coupled with a generous technology transfer package, promise to inject global know-how directly into India’s manufacturing bloodstream.
The runway ahead is long and prosperous, with engines that beat not just with performance, but with participation in knowing how they are made.
Simultaneously, India’s indigenous Kaveri engine journey powers on with renewed optimism.
Though it has faced delays in the past, it remains a national accomplishment in motion. Its enhanced derivatives are being envisioned for unmanned combat aerial vehicles, opening a transformational path into future warfare where agility, autonomy, and stealth will be the game changers.
Murthy himself champions this adaptive approach, reminding the nation that innovation often progresses in evolutionary leaps.
What makes the current plan truly powerful is the global collaboration framework ready to ignite.
Players like France’s Safran, Britain’s Rolls-Royce, and GE of the United States are eager companions in co-developing a 5th-generation stealth engine for the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA).
This engine will not only power a thrilling new aircraft but also empower India’s aero-industrial base with state-of-the-art technologies and long-term manufacturing capabilities.
AMCA itself is a marvel woven with ambition. With a prototype expected by 2028, it marks India's determined march into the fifth-generation jet arena, where stealth, supersonic speed, advanced avionics, and cutting-edge weapon systems shape the future battlespace.
Adding more glory to the project is the decision to open bids to private players for the very first time in Indian fighter development history.
This inclusion of private enterprise promises an ecosystem bustling with competitive energy, opening doors for startups, scaling opportunities for sectoral giants, and ensuring that creativity isn’t contained by the capacity of a single organisation.
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), the craftsmanship powerhouse behind much of India's aviation legacy, now gets a powerful partner ecosystem rather than an overwhelming workload.
The country’s modern defence philosophy isn’t just about manufacturing platforms but multiplying platforms of innovation, talent, and enterprise.
Prime Minister NarendraModi’s call for self-reliance has provided the policy fuel.
Under the Atmanirbhar Bharat vision, building engines at home is no longer aspirational rhetoric, but a strategic mission being executed with precision.
The government’s open invitation to global defence manufacturers to set up shop in India heralds a new confidence: India isn’t merely a market; it is a partner. It isn't merely a buyer; it is a builder.
The strategic advantage of this engine development program ripples far beyond defence preparedness. As capabilities deepen, the economic and technological dividends expand.
A strong defence manufacturing base strengthens the rupee, builds export credibility, and elevates India from a participant in the aerospace sector to a leader rewriting the rules.
Every bolt manufactured, every turbine blade cast in an Indian foundry plant, seeds of future industries yet to be imagined.
This programme embodies something even deeper: the evolution of national identity through technological excellence.
Engines are the roaring heartbeats of aircraft. And as India builds engines that can soar through the thin atmosphere at high speed, the message is loud and clear. The nation refuses to limit its dreams to ground realities. The future for Indian aerospace engineers won’t just be careers. It will be legacy.
With a robust five-year horizon to achieve major milestones, and a decade-long roadmap toward complete air-power expansion, the boosters are already firing. The vision is not of incremental change but transformational ascendance.
It celebrates the genius of Indian scientists, the daring of designers, the precision of manufacturers, and the courage of the pilots who will one day take these aircraft to the edge of the sky and beyond.
India’s $7.4 billion investment is more than a procurement plan. It is courage. It is confidence. It is a country telling the world that it is ready to master the technologies that shape power and preserve peace.
As runway lights illuminate the next generation of Indian fighters, each engine roaring to life beneath their wings will carry a story. A story of a nation lifting itself. A story of minds that never accepted limits. A story where the skies are not boundaries, but invitations.
India is not just aiming to fly. India is propelling itself to soar among the strongest air powers on Earth.
