India's drive to arm its homegrown fighter with homegrown eyes just got a significant push. Union Textiles Minister Giriraj Singh on Saturday, 1 August 2026 shared news of a ₹2,205 crore funding boost for a Make in India radar programme designed to sharpen the target-tracking capability of the Tejas light combat aircraft — a signal that India's self-reliance push in defence technology continues to attract serious capital.

What the ₹2,205 crore is actually buying

At the centre of this funding is the effort to equip Tejas with an indigenously developed radar — widely understood to be the Uttam Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, built by DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation). AESA radars are the gold standard for modern combat aircraft: they can simultaneously track multiple targets, resist jamming, and switch modes between air-to-air and air-to-ground missions within milliseconds. For a fighter that has long relied on imported sensor systems, a domestically developed AESA is the missing crown jewel.

HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited), which manufactures and integrates systems on Tejas, stands to be a key beneficiary as the funding flows into flight testing, system integration, and eventual squadron-ready production. The Indian Air Force, which inducted its first Tejas squadron in 2016, has been pushing for a radar upgrade as it scales up orders for the more capable Tejas Mk1A variant.

Make in India meets Atmanirbhar Bharat in the skies

The funding fits squarely into a decade-long policy arc. Make in India, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September 2014, named defence as a priority sector from day one — the explicit goal being to cut India's position as the world's largest arms importer. That ambition was turbocharged in 2020 with the Atmanirbhar Bharat defence push, which ring-fenced budgets for indigenous radar, avionics, and fighter development.

DRDO began work on the Uttam radar in the early 2010s precisely to replace the imported radar on Tejas with something designed and built in India. Progress has been incremental — lab development, ground testing, early flight trials — and each successive funding injection moves the programme closer to operational deployment. A boost of this scale typically covers the critical final stretch: rigorous flight trials on production-standard aircraft, software maturation, and the certification milestones the Air Force needs before it can declare the system combat-ready.

Why a Textiles Minister is amplifying a defence story

Giriraj Singh's post is a reminder of how senior BJP leaders routinely champion the broader Modi government agenda beyond their own ministerial portfolio — defence self-reliance, like infrastructure and manufacturing, is a whole-of-government narrative the party actively promotes. His amplification, shared via the NaMo App, signals the political salience the ruling party attaches to visible milestones in indigenous defence production ahead of an election cycle where 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' remains a core campaign plank.

Next in line to watch: flight trials of the upgraded radar on Tejas Mk1A airframes, and whether this funding tranche triggers a follow-on production order or a technology-transfer milestone that brings the Uttam radar closer to full induction.

India is no longer just assembling foreign designs — it is building the eyes that guide its own fighters. That shift, one funded programme at a time, is what ₹2,205 crore looks like in practice.