Following the news that Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) exited the race to make Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft fighter;

Akash Pratim Debbarma, Aerospace & Defense Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view:

“Recent reporting on HAL not proceeding as the development-cum-production partner for the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) programme has triggered understandable questions among stakeholder groups about the initiative’s viability. From an industry and programme management perspective, this development should be viewed as a pragmatic realignment rather than a setback for HAL and investors. India’s combat aircraft roadmap over the past decade, particularly through the LCA Mk1A and Mk2 programmes, offers useful context to understand why a private-sector-led execution model may be better suited for AMCA at this stage.

“HAL is currently managing several high-priority combat aviation programmes in parallel, including orders for over 180 LCA Mk1A aircraft, the upcoming LCA Mk2 prototype and flight-test phase, assembly of the GE-F414 engine, and ongoing support for legacy fleets and test activities. While capacity expansion, such as the new Mk1A production line in Nashik, will improve output, recent experience shows that concurrency across development, production, and supply-chain stabilization creates schedule pressure even when technical progress is sound.

“The 16-month delay in Mk1A deliveries, largely driven by engine unavailability, illustrates how external bottlenecks can cascade across programmes. A fifth-generation platform like AMCA carries substantially higher systems-integration and coordination complexity. Decoupling AMCA execution from HAL’s already dense workload reduces competition for production bandwidth, infrastructure, and supplier attention. This structural separation improves execution focus and lowers programme-level risk.

“Opening AMCA to private firms including major industrial consortia introduces competitiveness and diversifies technical capabilities, which can help address historical bottlenecks in large, complex aerospace programmes. The private sector’s flexible project management, manufacturing innovation, and supply chain discipline are critical in meeting ambitious timelines for prototype build, flight testing, certification, and eventual production roll-out. Private sector leadership in AMCA development is expected to catalyze the growth of a comprehensive domestic vendor network across avionics, composites, precision machining, systems integration, and software engineering. By decentralizing work packages and engaging specialised suppliers, India can nurture a robust aerospace supply chain that supports not only AMCA but future defense platforms, facilitating scalability and resilience.

“Building this extended industrial base also supports ‘Make in India’ and export-oriented aspirations. A wider supplier network expands quality benchmarks, enhances interoperability across projects, and reduces single-point dependencies, thereby increasing overall sectoral productivity.

“The AMCA execution model encourages partnerships that facilitate technology absorption, skill enhancement, and knowledge creation within Indian firms. With private players driving design, prototyping, and manufacturing, there is greater opportunity for embedded technology transfer across multiple disciplines, including stealth materials, avionics integration, and systems engineering. This diffusion of expertise directly contributes to job creation across engineering, advanced manufacturing, and high-end services, positively impacting the broader Indian technology workforce and attracting further private investment in defense R&D.

“HAL remains a central pillar of India’s aerospace ecosystem, particularly in serial production and systems integration. However, freeing the AMCA programme from capacity overlap while empowering capable private players increases the probability of on-time delivery, scalable production, and industrial spillovers.”