India could develop 5 Tejas fighter Jets in 35 years while Pakistan developed 105 JF 17 fighter jets in a decade: Report

ISLAMABAD- India has been struggling to develop the Tejas fighter jet forlast 35 years that too with the help of Russia while Pakistan has developedits indigenous fighter jet JF 17 within a span of 15 years.

India could only induct 5 Tejas fighter jets while Pakistan has developed105 JF 17 in last one decade.

After being critical of the Tejas fighter jets for last 35 years, theIndian Air Forcelink>hasnow agreed to induct as many as 324 indigenously developed light combataircraft (LCA), reports said on Thursday.

The induction of 324 Tejas fighter jets will make up for the IAF’sdepleting number of squadron strength.

The IAF has, for years, maintained that the Tejas jets are not combat-readyeven after three decades of development given its limited range.

However, the Indian Air Force has now committed to buy at least123 Tejasfighter jets at the cost of Rs 75,000 crore from the Hindustan AeronauticsLimited (HAL).

The IAF, however, demands that the Tejas Mark II jets should be entirely“new fighters” with “better avionics, radars, enhanced weapons carryingcapacity and powerful engines”.

“The Tejas Mark-II is still on the drawing board. But if DRDO, AeronauticalDevelopment Agency and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd deliver the requiredMark-II fighter, IAF has agreed to have a total of 18 Tejas squadrons,” ahighly-placed source was quoted as saying by the Times of India.

According to report, the IAF has already issued the request for proposal(RFP) to the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for the acquisition of 83fighters which are scheduled to join the IAF from 2019-20 after completionof Final Operational Clearance (FOC) contract for 20 Tejas jests.

The existing single-engine Tejas has limited “endurance” of just an hour,with a “radius of action” of only 350-400-km and weapon-carrying capacityof 3-tonne. While the other single-engine fighters such as Swedish Gripen-Ehave triple the endurance and double the weapon-carrying capacity.

IAF’s readiness to buy more LCA jets is based on its assessment that buyingand inducting expensive foreign fighters “in large numbers” is simply notan option.