No decision yet on foreign fifth-generation jet purchase, government says, as gap with China's stealth fleet widens

India’s government has not decided whether to acquire a foreign fifth-generation fighter jet, such as Russia’s Su-57, Defence Secretary RK Singh said, even as the country’s own stealth fighter programme remains years away from entering service, NDTV reported.

Speaking at the NDTV Defence Summit 2026 in New Delhi, Singh said, “On the induction of fifth-generation fighter aircraft from global sources, the government has not taken a decision as yet.” He added that India’s current fifth-generation programme remains the indigenous Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), but said, “we’ll see where it goes.”

According to NDTV, China is believed to operate roughly 500 stealth fighters, comprising its J-20 and J-35 jets, while India has none in active service. The report cited an earlier NDTV account that found China had deployed 11 J-20 stealth jets at airbases positioned against India in June and July. NDTV also noted that the J-35 is expected to enter service with the Pakistan Air Force as well, adding a second front to the capability gap.

HAL left out of the AMCA prototype bid

Singh also disclosed, in the same NDTV interview, that state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) did not qualify to build prototypes of the AMCA, marking the first time the company has been excluded from an indigenous fighter-jet project. He said HAL “didn’t qualify on some fairly routine technical grounds which they somehow failed to meet,” without specifying what those grounds were. In response, the Defence Ministry has opened up manufacturing of the aircraft to the private sector, with the stated aim of establishing an additional fighter production line beyond HAL.

Timelines for the AMCA and LCA Mk2

Singh said the first AMCA prototype is expected to fly in September 2028. He also gave a timeline for a related programme, saying the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Mk2 prototype is slated for its first flight between June and September 2027. The AMCA is expected to initially use the same GE F414 engines as the LCA Mk2.

Even on the September 2028 timeline for the first prototype, the AMCA’s entry into Indian Air Force service would come nearly a decade from now, assuming it clears integration and flight trials without delay. Singh separately noted that the Tejas Mk1A is meant to address the IAF’s current squadron shortfall while the Mk2 and AMCA programmes are still being developed.

A shift from earlier signals

Singh’s remarks in New Delhi represent a more cautious position than one he gave nearly a year and a half earlier, when he was reported to have said the government was actively considering a foreign fifth-generation fighter purchase as a short-term measure to bridge the IAF’s capability gap while the AMCA matured, though he had even then stressed that the AMCA programme took primacy and “cannot have the project shelved to buy something from outside.” At the more recent summit, he confirmed that no proposal, from the US or Russia, has been acted upon, keeping the government’s focus squarely on the indigenous programme for now.

The comments underline the scale of the challenge facing the IAF as it weighs whether to bridge the capability gap with an interim foreign purchase or wait for the domestic programme to mature. With no government decision yet on a foreign acquisition, HAL excluded from the AMCA prototype contract for the first time, and the aircraft’s own timeline stretching toward the mid-2030s, India’s fifth-generation fighter capability remains an open question for the years ahead.