No More US Engines For Tejas Mark 2? India May Opt For French Parts As Talks With America Fail To Gain Pace

(MENAFN- Live Mint) India is weighing French-made engines for its fighter jets as talks over joint manufacturing with the US move at a sluggish pace, according to senior officials in New Delhi familiar with the matter.

New Delhi is in talks with Paris-based Safran SA over the engines, the officials said, asking not to be identified as the discussions are still private. They did not clarify whether India would buy these engines or seek to jointly produce them.

India's advanced homegrown fighter, Tejas Mark-2, was to be powered by the US-made GE F-414 engin . Under the Biden administration, New Delhi and Washington had agreed to jointly manufacture the engines, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to diversify defense ties away from Russia.

While talks with the US have slowed down recently, the two nations are still negotiating the joint manufacturing of GE F-414 engines in the country, the officials added.

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The South Asian country plans to build nearly 200 of these advanced jets to replace its British-made Jaguars and French-made Mirage-2000s, which are still flying but likely to be retired soon, the people said. India urgently wants build its defense capability after a near full-scale war with Pakistan involving air, drone and missile strikes, as well as artillery and small arms fire along their shared border earlier this year.

India's Ministry of Defence didn't respond to emails seeking comments. A media representative for Safran declined to comment.

India is facing a shortage of fighter jets and is looking to scale up production through joint ventures with leading global defense manufacturers. The country is the world's second-largest importer of weapons, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute - but Modi aims to change that by boosting domestic manufacturing of military hardware.

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Earlier this year, India for the first time allowed domestic private firms to design and develop advanced warplanes to replace its aging fleet.

The transition comes as India-US relations face their roughest patch in decades, after President Donald Trump slapped 50% tariffs on the South Asian country - the highest in the region.

Still, both sides have tried to keep defense engagements steady. A team from the US Defense Department and Boeing Co. executives were in India last week to negotiate the sale of about $4 billion of surveillance aircraft, Bloomberg had reported.

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