I do think diversification needed to happen with the Indian aviation industry and I have no doubt about the competency of the other companies involved, my big concern is that this is a super risky project to have as their first aircraft even with some of the best engineers in the world and handholding from DRDO and ADA. I suppose India is in a position where it needs to take those risks, but I really would have liked to see the companies involved be given the task of designing a jet trainer beforehand just to give them proper experience.
I have my doubts about the competency of the companies involved. But at this point, does India have any choice? HAL was given a privileged position ever since independence -- 80 years almost. What has it done with it? Scarcely little.
There's another angle here. It's hardly a secret that many of the biggest business houses in India are gigantic donors to the BJP. Just like in America, the defence contractors have deep pockets and typically controls politicians to do their bidding in Congress.
There's also a political issue at play here. By spreading out India's MIC bets to various private companies except the state-owned HAL, the ruling dispensation can always blame private businesses for failures. HAL is a state-owned enterprise. The buck ultimately stops at the PMO. Not so for these businesses.
To me the exact breakdown of India's public-private split for its MIC misses the forest for the trees. The fundamental issue is that India has a weak industrial base and the engineering talent it gets either moves abroad or moves into services (e.g. software engineer). I've posted salaries from HAL on this forum before. You're just not going to get top talent for 50-60K rupees per month.
I suppose the private companies can afford to pay more, but I doubt they can compete with FAANG recruitment in India let alone top Western firms abroad. As long as this is the case, the Indian MIC will continue to stagger forward haphazardly.
