India to spend $7.4b on fighter jet engines

India expects to spend about Rs654 billion ($7.44 billion) to buy engines for fighter aircraft that are under development until 2035, according to estimates shared on Friday by an official, who leads the efforts to build a home-grown engine.

The country will require about 1,100 engines for a variety of fighter jet programmes that are progressing through various stages, said SV Ramana Murthy, director of India's Gas Turbine Research Establishment, a state-run defence laboratory.

India's decades-old programme to power its light combat Tejas jets with home-grown Kaveri engine has yet to take off due to technical shortcomings. "There is a need to work on mission mode to create an ecosystem for indigenous fighter engine," Murthy said at an event in New Delhi.

He added that the country needed infrastructure such as a high-altitude testing facility, along with an industrial base.