Chinese strides in military technology and production pushed People’s Republic of China ahead of India. “We have lagged behind China in technology and production rates of defence equipment,” Indian Air Force (IAF) chief Air Chief Marshal (ACM) Amar Preet Singh said in an assessment vis-a-vis China. Air Chief stressed the need for ramping up domestic production of fighter jets by involving the private sector.
Shailesh Kumar, National Defence
New Delhi, 04 October 2024
“We have done our analysis. We don’t have a design to go offensive unnecessarily. Only when we are pushed, we will do something… We have our plans in place. One place I can positively say is we are training much better than them. We have exposure much better than them. We get to know… how they train and how many different Air Forces they interact with and how many do we interact with. One people behind the machine, we are way ahead of them,” Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh said addressing the annual press conference ahead of Air Force Day on October 8.
“As far as technology is concerned, we may be not so good as of now, we have lagged. We were better than them in technology also sometime ago, but we have lagged in that and we need to catch up. As far as production rates are concerned, we are way behind. We need to catch up. That will happen over a period of time, it cannot happen overnight.”
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.
IAF Chief ACM Amar Preet Singh says it is a known fact Tejas program has got delayed. First is not let our aircraft strength go down. HAL has to keep the promise to produce 24 aircraft a year. #HAL, #Tejas, #ACMAmarpreetSingh, @IAF_MCC, @HALHQBLR
— NationalDefence (@NDIndiaFirst) October 4, 2024
Emphasising self reliance- aatmanirbharta in defence manufacturing, ACM AP Singh also delved into the procurement of India’s indigenous aircraft LCA Tejas mk2 and AMCA fighter jet.
He says RFP has been issued for procurement of Medium Transport Aircraft to replace ageing fleet of AN-32 and IL-76. Besides he also answered questions on IAF’s preparedness vis a vis China amid ongoing military stand off in Eastern Ladakh. He says situation on northern border remains same from over a last one year. He says it is not India’s design to go offensive until pushed into a situation while answering on China.
IAF Chief ACM Amar Preet Singh says we do not have designs to go offensive but only when we are pushed. Air Chief responded in his annual press conference when asked if #IAF is confident of taking on #China. #ACMAmarPreetSingh, @IAF_MCC, #China, #IndiaChinaMikitaryStandoff pic.twitter.com/7xXlrF3CsM
— NationalDefence (@NDIndiaFirst) October 4, 2024
ACM Singh emphasised on building indigenous defence manufacturing capabilities to cope up with huge requirement of ammunition in case of war situation. Lauding importance of Tejas Mk2, which is delayed by 7 years, ACM AP Singh said that it may be just equal to Rafale but being indigenous, will offer opportunities to employ any type of weapon systems as technology is our own.
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