By Vivek Raghuvanshi
NEW DELHI — The Indian government will increase orders for its homegrown Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), called Tejas, from 20 to 120, but Air Force officials question the plane's capabilities, and the scheduled arrival of a more advanced model remains murky.
However, Indian Air Force officials said the move to increase reliance on the Tejas, delayed by more than 15 years, would severely compromise India's combat worthiness because this would lead to total dependence on state owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL), which the officials said has a poor record of delivery and quality.
Besides, LCA-Mark1 will be able to meet only the low end of Air Force requirements, a senior Air Force official said.
A Ministry of Defence official, however, said the Air Force ordered additional LCAs with features more advanced than the LCA-Mark 1, including a self-protection jammer, an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar to be procured from Elta of Israel, and air-to-air refueling capability. This version of the aircraft would be labeled LCA-Mark 1A, he said.
But an Air Force official said the decision to boost the order for LCA-Mark 1s was forced on them by the government to support its policy of "Make in India" defense projects.
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