Panaji: In a veiled critique of the Indian Air Force’s troubled record in indigenous fighter jet and engine development, Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh on Wednesday said the development and production of frontline fighters must keep pace with technological advances to remain relevant in combat.Without naming Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), the Air Chief warned that delays would defeat the purpose of indigenisation.“Any technology delayed is technology denied,” he said, adding that homegrown research and development must proceed “at the speed of relevance.”Holding up the Indian Navy’s shipbuilding ecosystem as a model, Singh said the Air Force must emulate its approach to achieve self-reliance.“If you are growing at a speed that by the time you design and develop something, by the time you produce something, the world has moved over to new technology, that has no meaning,” he said.He was, however, measured in his assessment of India’s defence-industrial progress.“I’m not saying we’ve reached very close to the target, but we are in the right direction, and as long as one is moving in the right direction, there is hope… if we don’t waver from this path,” he said.Speaking as chief guest at the commissioning of INS Malvan, an indigenously built anti-submarine warfare shallow watercraft, at the Naval Dockyard here, Singh said the Navy had got the model of self-reliance “right” by embedding its officers directly into shipyards early in their careers—a practice, he said, the Air Force should adopt in aviation.“I just hope that the other two services, especially the Indian Air Force, learn their lesson as to how the Indian Navy has been able to get this whole concept right, where you have your Indian Navy officers embedded right in your shipbuilding from the beginning,” he said.Such officers, he noted, “grow up in the same chain” and eventually head shipyards, often continuing to contribute to the sector after retirement. Aviation, he said, must replicate this model “to make sure that our dream of being self-reliant becomes a reality, and becomes a reality soon”.The remarks, made in the presence of Cochin Shipyard Limited chairperson and managing director Jose VJ, come against the backdrop of years of friction between the IAF and HAL over delays in delivering Tejas light combat aircraft and, more recently, their engines.INS Malvan is the second ship of the Mahe-class Anti-Submarine Warfare Shallow Watercraft project. It is the first warship to be commissioned at the Karwar naval base and the seventh naval ship inducted this year. The Navy expects to commission 12 more warships before the end of the year.In his address, Singh placed the commissioning within India’s broader maritime and strategic priorities, saying the country’s trade—and, by extension, its “destiny”—depended on secure sea lines of communication in the Indian Ocean Region. Recent global developments, he said, had only reinforced the importance of keeping trade routes open, and he credited the Navy with playing “a very vital role” in that effort.He also reaffirmed the Air Force’s commitment to deepening joint operations with the Navy, pointing to Operation Sindoor as a demonstration of such integration.“No future war is going to be fought by any single service,” he said. “All of us in Whites, Blues or Olive Green have to fight together as one nation, and then only we will succeed.”The Air Chief’s remarks are likely to be seen in defence circles as fresh high-level pressure on HAL and the broader aviation ecosystem at a time when the Air Force has repeatedly flagged production delays as a strategic vulnerability.
