India's Defence Budget Prioritizes TEDBF and Ghatak UCAV Programs Amidst China's Growing Presence in IOR

India's latest defence budget has allocated significant funding for the Twin Engine Deck-Based Fighter (TEDBF) program and the development of the Remotely Stealthy Powered Autonomous Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (RSPA UCAV), also known as Ghatak.

This investment underscores India's commitment to modernizing its naval aviation capabilities and bolstering its presence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) in the face of China's growing influence.

The budget statement explicitly mentions that "some major acquisitions planned in the next year, such as Long Endurance Remotely Piloted Aircraft of High and Medium Altitude and Stage Payment of Deck-Based Aircraft, will be funded out of this allocation." This confirms that both the TEDBF and Ghatak programs are being prioritized for development and acquisition.

The Ghatak UCAV program has already achieved significant progress, with scaled model testing completed and the Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) commencing fabrication of the first prototype.

This unmanned combat aircraft will be powered by a derivative of the indigenous Kaveri engine, generating 46kN of thrust. With a maximum takeoff weight of nearly 13 tons, it will be comparable in size to the Tejas Mk1A fighter jet.

Meanwhile, the TEDBF is poised to become the Indian Navy's next-generation carrier-based fighter, replacing the aging MiG-29K fleet. The allocation of funds for project clearance and subsequent development ensures that India continues its strides towards self-reliance in naval aviation.

This development also indicates that the Critical Design Review (CDR) for the TEDBF program is nearing completion and will soon be presented to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for project funding.

Both the TEDBF and Ghatak are crucial to India's strategic posture in the Indo-Pacific region, where maintaining maritime and aerial dominance is paramount.

These projects will significantly enhance India's operational reach and combat effectiveness, allowing the nation to project power and safeguard its interests in the IOR and beyond.

The development of these advanced aircraft comes at a time when China is increasing its naval presence in the Indian Ocean, underscoring the importance of India's investment in its own defence capabilities.

 

[Arin Kumar]

Looking at the defence budget where the allocation is made more for pensions of retired soldiers and less for strategic equipment development, one thing is clear - Government of India is not looking for a conflict with China. Even if that conflict situation ever comes, the Government of India will meekly step back and yield territory to China. In fact, i will say India will try to appease China in case of defence.

Even in case of Pakistan, Myanmar and Bangladesh also India is most likely to follow an ultra-cautious, conflict avoiding path.

The Government is more focussed on shoring up the vote base among the 3.8 million ex-servicemen and war widows. Assuming each Ex-servicemen has 5 members in their family that is dependent on their pension money - that is 3.8X5=19 million people = close to 2 crore voters.

So government is not preparing for any war at the borders - our existing soldiers have to do with whatever they can, with whatever equipment they have at their disposal. Only war they are preparing for is that in the Elections.

So much for our dreams for Tejas and Kaveri and SSNs.

 

[Sandeep]

With the current decrease of defence budget in R&D and defence production, i think TEDBF and AMCA is out of the window.

UCAV Ghatak with indigenous dry Kaveri engine appears to be feasible - even with defence budget cuts.

Even that will also be a crowning acheivement for Indian defence manufacturing industry.

No the defence budget in real term cash has increased and so has the amount of money going into research and development projects which is split between DRDO and private sector companies.

Once they complete the TEDBF critical design review and everyone is happy with the technology and capabilities then it will go to the CCS and funds will be given very quickly but until all of the research and development, technology, capabilities along with the paperwork is cleared and sent to the CCS then obviously the CCS can’t clear the funds until everything is completed procedure wise.

As for the stealth UCAV Ghatak they have just completed all of the technology and development for the SWIFT drones which is a smaller and technology demonstrator version of the Ghatak drone. So far all of the tests and technology has worked properly and without fault. Now they need to construct the much larger and real size Ghatak drone using the Kaveri engine which has passed simulated high altitude tests. Now they need to manufacture 4-6 Ghatak drones so that they can quickly carry out all of the tests and development of the drone but more crucially the different type of missiles and bombs that will be used and work very well with. Now we need to make sure that only Indian missiles and bombs can be used and not any foreign expensive imports.

 

[kumar]

Excellent development. Much needed funding for TEDBF and Ghatak. Hope more such funding is made available for these programs and make our country truly atmanirbhar.

 

[Dredd]

Shortening time without any type of compromise on the certainty of efficiency parameters.

Unfortunately, it is not.

We still depend on our design on robust MKC methods where all parameters are unknown at the beginning and only in steps, they get it for each substructure. The algorithms are time-consuming. Maybe they will use GPUs to reduce it a little, but I think it is unavoidable with current methodologies.

it's unacceptable compared to chinese, koreans and turkish pace of fighter jet designs.

 

[Benith Israel]

Do you realise why India's defence budget is shrinking as a share of GDP? Or are you just looking at a number and speaking about it?

India's GDP is increasing at a faster pace as compared to the government's revenue, and therefore the government's expenditure. That means that unless you spend a larger share of the budget on defence, the defence budget will shrink as a percentage of the GDP.

A better comparison would be to look at defence spending as a share of the expenditure budget. In this case, it has constantly been between 12 to 14% for years, with this year's figure being about 13.45%. We physically cannot spend more on defence due to other spending commitments.

The only way to organically increase the defence budget is through increasing the government's revenues.

Yup! thats hitting the nail on the head. Another aspect is that defence spending as % of gdp works for countries that produce their own weapons. If India increased it, it'll lead to more foreign exchane outgo and further pressure on currency to depreciate which will make purchases even costlier escpecially on the revenue side due to servicing of the equipment and spares. You cannot find more capital for new equipment. The best way forward would be to buy Indian manufactured weapons whose IP is local and there is no need for constant licencing fee. Then we can measure defence as percentage of GDP.