India way behind China, need to catch up: IAF chief

Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal AP Singh on Friday said the IAF is aiming to have its entire inventory produced in India by 2047 under the indigenisation programme even as he asserted that Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd must produce 24 Tejas light combat jets annually as promised to offset the delays in supplies.

At a press conference ahead of Air Force Day on October 8, he also said that India needs to catch up with China on technology and speed in production of military equipment, holding that "we are way behind" the neighbour.

Air Chief Marshal Singh, at the same time, said the Indian military is way ahead in terms of personnel including those operating various machines and platforms.

"I am very confident that as far as human angle is concerned, as far as our people behind the machine are concerned, we are way ahead of them," he said.

"As far as technology is concerned, we may not be so good as of now. We have lagged. We were better than them in technology some time back. But have lagged in that and we need to catch up," he said.

"As far as production rates are concerned, we are way behind. We need to catch up with that. And that will happen over a period of time. It cannot happen overnight," he said.

On the eastern Ladakh standoff between India and China, the IAF Chief said the situation remains same as it has been for the last one-year-plus, but noted that the development of infrastructure "on the other side has been very rapid."

"We are trying to match up with it. We are upgrading our airfields. There are new airfields coming up," he said.

The Chief of Air Staff underlined the importance of India becoming self-reliant in weapons and other systems and said it is important to face future security challenges.

"On the whole, IAF has got a vision. By 2047, we should have the entire inventory being either produced in India or developed and produced in India," he said.

"In a conflict situation when 200 to 300 missiles are fired in one day, then you have to have manufactured them in India. You cannot afford to have them procured from outside," he said.

His comments came when asked about Iran firing over 200 missiles into Israel a few days ago.

The IAF chief said his force also has issues of supply chain breaking down because of the ongoing wars.

"We have components which come from these regions. So maintaining those equipment is a challenge," he said, in an apparent reference to the Russia-Ukraine war.

On the Tejas programme, the IAF Chief said the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) must produce 24 aircraft as promised.

"The HAL has to keep the promise of building 24 aircraft per year. If that promise is kept, I think the delays can be caught up with," he said.

The IAF has placed an order with HAL for 83 Tejas Mark-1A aircraft. The deliveries were to begin in March. However, not a single aircraft has been delivered yet.

To a question, Air Chief Marshal Singh said three units of S-400 missile systems were delivered by Russia and it promised to deliver the remaining two units by next year.

He said the IAF is procuring a plethora of weapons systems including surface-to-air guided weapons.