Part 3

Engines as Strategy: AMCA–Safran, Rolls‑Royce and the Kaveri Arc

For AMCA, propulsion is the single largest technical and strategic bet. In August 2025, the Raksha Mantri stated that the AMCA engine will be co-developed with Safran over a ten-year period under the India–France Horizon 2047 roadmap, with full technology transfer articulated as the political intent. Reporting around the proposed arrangement points to a roughly 120 kN-class engine, designed for AMCA Mk-2 and potentially adaptable to whatever form the Navy’s future carrier-borne stealth fighter eventually takes, if that path survives the Rafale-M comfort zone. The project value is estimated at $7–7.5 billion, with milestones including multiple prototype engines by around 2027 and flight testing by 2028–29.

DRDO’s chairman has repeatedly underlined that a foreign partnership is essential to meet AMCA’s projected induction window of around 2035, explicitly linking timely engine collaboration to avoiding another Kaveri-style slippage. If the Safran partnership delivers what is currently being signalled in public, it would mark a significant departure from past aero-engine arrangements. Briefings and reporting suggest a framework that includes full technology transfer, including access to hot-section know-how such as single-crystal blade manufacturing and high-temperature materials, with Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) retaining intellectual property rights over the jointly developed engine. If implemented in that form, it would be unusually ambitious by modern standards.

Most contemporary fighter‑engine collaborations, even among close partners, tend to involve deep co‑development, licensed production or structured workshare. They rarely extend to a comprehensive transfer of hot‑section design mastery combined with unconstrained local intellectual property control.

In practice, engine OEMs ring‑fence “crown‑jewel” know‑how through background‑IP carve‑outs, export‑control restrictions and black‑boxed processes, so arrangements of this openness remain almost without precedent in this segment of the market.

I emphasise the para above, as it warrants caution. Until the contract text is visible, governance structures are defined, and implementation pathways are clarified, it is prudent to treat political signalling and technical reality as separate questions.

In propulsion, the difference between manufacturing access and design ownership is subtle on paper yet decisive in practice. The intent appears to be that India should be able to manufacture, upgrade, and eventually export the engine (or derivatives) without seeking ongoing French permission, creating a complete development and manufacturing ecosystem in India rather than a licensed assembly line. This is precisely the level of design authority that was missing in earlier collaborations and is now being held up as a “National Mission Mode Project” directly backed by the political leadership.

At the same time, Safran does not operate in a vacuum. Rolls‑Royce has tabled a parallel offer for a 110–120 kN‑class engine co‑developed in India, pitched specifically at AMCA Mk‑2 and future fighters, with public claims of full technology transfer and even Indian ownership of intellectual property. The British proposal outlines a modular design scalable to higher thrust classes, a dedicated design and manufacturing complex in India, and a broader roadmap that includes a “Kaveri 2.0” /F414‑class engine line for Tejas successors and unmanned systems. MoD has effectively asked GTRE to choose between Safran and Rolls‑Royce for the AMCA Mk‑2 engine by the 2025–26 window, creating a rare situation in which India can leverage direct competition to demand deep design rights, long‑term ecosystem investment and clear export freedoms from whichever partner it finally selects.

Against this, the Kaveri story offers both a cautionary tale and a reservoir of experience. Sanctioned by the CCS in 1989 to power the LCA, Kaveri struggled with thrust shortfalls, weight overruns and reliability issues, leading to its delinking from Tejas after years of effort. Yet even as Kaveri failed its original mission, it built a non‑trivial base of design, test and materials know‑how at Gas Turbine and partner labs—knowledge that DRDO now openly cites as valuable background for AMCA engine work. In 2025, the Ministry of Defence signalled a strategic revival by sanctioning two major Kaveri Derivative Engine projects under the Technology Development Fund, worth a combined ₹723.59 crore, to develop a flightworthy dry Kaveri for the Ghatak/IUCAV and to run a technology‑demonstration derivative engine programme.

Those two projects point to what Kaveri has quietly become: not a failed Tejas engine to be buried, but a testbed family for unmanned aircraft and a stepping stone towards future manned‑fighter cores. The flightworthy dry Kaveri effort, sanctioned at about ₹472.42 crore, is focused on delivering an operational engine for Ghatak, while the ₹251.17 crore derivative programme is meant to validate key technologies and configurations for unmanned applications. Godrej Aerospace has been tasked with manufacturing six Kaveri-derivative engines by 2025 and has already delivered initial modules, signalling deeper private‑sector entry into aero‑engines. These moves are being presented by MoD as part of a wider ₹29,558.66 crore push into indigenous defence R&D and are explicitly linked in official communication to the goal of aero‑engine self‑reliance.

The strategic question is how these strands are woven together. One path treats the AMCA–Safran or AMCA–Rolls-Royce engine as a stand‑alone collaboration for a single fighter, Kaveri/KDE as an interesting but peripheral UCAV engine, and Rafale’s M88 support as a separate MRO business—all running in parallel, each with its own contracts and logic. The alternative is to fuse them into a coherent engine ecosystem. That would mean using Kaveri’s design teams, test facilities and tooling directly inside whichever co‑development programme India finally signs; designing the AMCA engine JV and IP structure so that derivative cores for UCAVs, cruise missiles and future fighters can be spun off in India; and explicitly linking the Rafale M88 MRO facilities to indigenous hot‑section and materials work rather than treating them as pure support franchises.

Seen this way, the Raksha Mantri’s decision to back Kaveri revival and AMCA engine co‑development, alongside active courting by both Safran and Rolls‑Royce, is not just a budget choice; it is a structural signal.

Either these programmes are managed as a coherent propulsion strategy that uses Rafale’s presence and foreign competition to climb the design ladder, or they devolve into familiar patterns: imported cores supported under foreign design authority, indigenous engines kept in the “R&D” corner, and propulsion decisions taken platform by platform rather than as a national capability question.

The Rafale MRFA moment, in other words, forces India to decide whether engines are merely another line item in a fighter contract, or the central organising principle of its aerospace future.

Revenue Budgets: The Silent Shaper of Strategy

The MRFA headline number—about ₹3.6 lakh crore for 114 Rafales, associated missiles and systems—is politically dramatic but only a fraction of what India will actually spend over the life of the fleet. Global experience suggests that for modern multi‑role fighters, operating and support costs over 30–40 years often match or exceed the original acquisition bill; this includes engine overhauls, scheduled depot maintenance, structural refurbishments, software upgrades and weapons replenishment. In Rafale’s case, those revenue streams will flow predominantly to the M88 engine line, Safran and Dassault support organisations, and the French supply chain unless contracts are designed to progressively pull both work and value into India.

Analysts have already flagged that a $35–40 billion MRFA package risks crowding out funding for Tejas Mk2 and AMCA if life‑cycle costs are not carefully managed, especially in a context where the IAF is also seeking more AWACS, tankers and transport aircraft to address its China‑Pakistan two‑front problem. Every Rafale squadron brings with it multi‑decadal commitments to engine overhaul contracts, long‑term spares pipelines, recurring software support and stockpiles of high‑end munitions, which, if sourced abroad, lock in a structural outflow of hard currency and engineering work. Conversely, if MRFA and follow‑on agreements explicitly mandate that an increasing share of MRO, software maintenance and subsystem refurbishment be undertaken in Indian facilities, the same revenue line can underwrite indigenous test cells, avionics labs, materials research and workforce skills that directly benefit AMCA and Kaveri.

The contrast with legacy fleets is instructive.

Over time, India has managed to localise large parts of Su‑30MKI MRO and upgrades, including licence‑manufactured AL‑31FP engines and mission systems, thereby reducing dependence and building HAL’s competence. Mirage‑2000 and Jaguar upgrades, led increasingly by Indian teams, have also shown that life‑cycle work can be converted into domestic capability when design data and integration authority are available. In the experience of this analyst, however, core engine design and metallurgy – particularly in the hot section – have never been fully handed over to India by any original equipment manufacturer, even where licensed manufacture exists.

Rafale MRFA is an opportunity to apply that lesson deliberately: to insist that a fixed and rising proportion of revenue be spent on the Rafale ecosystem, funding Indian facilities, Indian engineers, and Indian tools. Without such a design, the risk is that while capital headlines celebrate “Make in India” airframes, the revenue budget quietly finances foreign engineering for another generation, leaving AMCA and Kaveri to fight for scraps in the R&D column.

Avoiding the Illusion of Momentum

The most immediate temptation after a mega‑deal is to conflate aircraft counts with aerospace progress. With 114 MRFA Rafales in the pipeline, 83 Tejas Mk1A already contracted and another 97 Mk1A on the anvil, and Tejas Mk2 aiming for 120 units by the mid‑2030s, it will be easy for official narratives to claim an “unprecedented” modernisation surge. Squadron numbers will indeed climb, and in purely operational terms, that matters. But aerospace maturity is not measured by how many imported or semi-knockdown fighters enter service. It is measured by how many hours indigenous prototypes fly, how often indigenous engines run on testbeds and in the air, and how much of the front‑line sensor and EW stack is designed, certified and evolved domestically.

A more honest dashboard for this decade could track a small set of hard metrics:

One is prototype activity: the roll‑out of AMCA technology demonstrators, their annual flight‑test hours, and the pace at which major test points—stealth, flight envelope, weapons separation—are cleared.

A second is propulsion: the number of full‑duration ground runs and flight tests of both the AMCA–Safran engine and Kaveri derivative engines for Ghatak, along with incremental thrust and reliability milestones.

A third is subsystem autonomy: the share of IAF and IN combat fleets equipped with Indian AESA radars, EW suites, and data links, moving beyond Tejas into Rafale upgrades and future platforms.

If, by the early‑mid 2030s, Rafale numbers are up, but these indicators have barely shifted, India will have bought time in the air but not built power in the ecosystem. The task now is to ensure that every claim of “momentum” is pinned to such concrete, indigenous milestones rather than to the comforting sight of new foreign jets on the flight line.

Turning Rafale into a bridge rather than a destination now depends on a handful of specific policy choices: ring‑fencing AMCA, treating engines as a national mission, and hard‑wiring Rafale as a technology ladder instead of a sealed package.

Policy Roadmap: Making Rafale the Bridge, Not the Destination

First, AMCA needs to be treated as a disciplined national programme, not an R&D line item that can be squeezed whenever capital pressures rise.

The government has already cleared AMCA’s development phase under a DRDO‑HAL‑IAF execution model, and DRDO’s leadership is publicly on record with a 2028–29 first flight and ~2035 induction window. That intent must now be backed by a published roadmap—phased funding over the next decade, prototype and test milestones, and a clear division of labour between DRDO, HAL and private industry—that cannot be casually truncated to smooth Rafale cash‑flows. One practical mechanism would be to classify AMCA as a ‘mission mode’ project on the lines of the Integrated Guided Missile Programme or Arihant, with multi‑year committed funding approved at the CCS level and annual progress reports to Parliament, noting that India’s legislative oversight of defence R&D is still thin and deserves its own debate.

Second, propulsion needs to be pulled out of platform‑by‑platform thinking and elevated into a National Aero‑Engine Mission.

The government has already, in effect, set the pieces: a Safran co‑development programme for AMCA’s 120 kN‑class engine promising full technology transfer; a revived Kaveri/KDE line for UCAVs and derivative uses funded at ₹723.59 crore; and a wider ₹29,558.66 crore push into indigenous defence R&D. The next logical step is to create a single governance structure that binds these together—anchored in GTRE but drawing in HAL, private industry and academia—with clear ownership of test facilities, IP, staffing pipelines and export strategy. Under such a mission, Rafale M88 MRO, AMCA–Safran development, and Kaveri derivatives would be managed as part of a common propulsion stack, with explicit goals for how much hot‑section work, materials science, and design tooling must be indigenised by, say, 2035.

Third, Rafale MRFA itself must be written as a technology ladder.

That means moving beyond “40–50% indigenous content” to a structured upgrade roadmap in which defined Rafale mid‑life enhancements are Indian‑led and explicitly tied to indigenous subsystems. For example, the contract could specify that by the first Mid Life Upgrade (MLU), an Indian mission computer, selected Indian weapons, and at least one Indian AESA/EW combination will be integrated under Indian project leadership, with Dassault and Safran in support roles and with configuration boards where Indian stakeholders hold a decisive vote. It should also mandate a rising trajectory of local MRO and software workshare, with quantifiable milestones—for instance, X% of engine overhauls and Y% of avionics/software maintenance value to be performed in India within 10 years—so that the inevitable revenue stream from Rafale sustainment becomes a planned investment into AMCA‑relevant skills and infrastructure.

Finally, the revenue budget needs simple guardrails.

One approach would be a policy rule that a fixed proportion—say 10–15%—of annual foreign sustainment expenditure on fighters must be spent inside India on test facilities, labs, certification infrastructure and human capital directly supporting indigenous programmes. Another is to require periodic reviews of major support contracts (Rafale, Su‑30MKI, future AMCA engine agreements) with explicit localisation targets and consequences for failure. These are not glamorous reforms, but they are the mechanisms by which India can ensure that every rupee spent keeping Rafales flying in the 2030s also moves AMCA, Kaveri and the broader aerospace ecosystem forward, turning this CCS moment into the opening of a sovereignty chapter rather than the closing of a procurement saga.

Rafale MRFA closes a long and messy procurement arc, but it only opens the right strategic chapter if India uses this comfort window to lock in AMCA, engines and integration authority as non‑negotiable pillars of its aerospace future.

Conclusion: From One Chapter to the Right One

With 114 more Rafales cleared in principle on top of 36 already in service and 26 Rafale‑M on order, India has effectively chosen its 4.5‑generation backbone for the next two decades. This decision will steady squadron numbers and give the IAF and Navy credible mass and reach at a time when legacy fleets are retiring, and the PLAAF is fielding larger numbers of advanced fighters.

This hopefully marks the end of an era in which India lurched from one fighter contest to another without ever consolidating a true ecosystem spine. The deeper question is whether that spine is a bridge or a cul‑de‑sac.

If Rafale remains a tightly gated foreign package assembled in India, with configuration control, engine evolution and major upgrades effectively decided abroad, then AMCA and Kaveri will continue to live in the discretionary realm—worthy, but something that can be postponed whenever budgets tighten, or imported fleets offer an easier option. If, however, Rafale MRFA is explicitly structured around Indian integration authority, a Safran engine partnership that genuinely transfers design tools and IP, and a revived Kaveri/KDE line that feeds into a coherent propulsion mission, then this same decision becomes a launchpad for sovereign aerospace capability.

The test, ultimately, is brutally simple.

In the mid‑2030s and beyond, will India be able to design, certify, upgrade and sustain a front‑line fighter and its engine without external permission, using Rafale only as one step on that ladder?

Or will it still be fielding world‑class jets whose most critical design and evolution decisions are made elsewhere, while indigenous programmes struggle for space in the shadow of imported comfort?

The choices made now—on AMCA funding, on engine governance, on Rafale contract structure and on how revenue budgets are tied to domestic capability—will decide which of these futures becomes real.