If you remember, before 2016, it was a trend to commission a ship or a fighter without its weapon integration. But now, it has changed.
Similarly, now govt is not going to give approval for any project where critical foreign tech is involved unless and until the paper work is rock solid. We suffered in Tejas development because of the lackadaisical attitude of loose paper work in initial stage.
If what you say is true then we're going to see disbursement of funds only towards the end of next year. I don't expect the agreement between HAL & GE to be signed this year for the simple reason that the matter of seeking permissions for export of sensitive technologies requires Congress approval .
As of now there was a report some weeks back stating the procedure for filing of such permissions before Congress hasn't even begun. Once that happens , it goes to the State Department & DoD who issue clearances. It's only after that the said agreement is in place to be signed.
Add to that we're going in for elections which means from anytime in February the incumbent government can't decide on matters involving monetary implications given the model code of conduct. So if what you're saying is true then we're looking at end 2024 at the earliest or anytime in 2025.
If first flight happens in 2028 which looks likely then FOC won't happen before 2033 which again is an optimistic assessment & SP won't happen before 2036-37 whereas any delay beyond 2030 in SP of the LCA MK-2 doesn't make sense given the Chinese would be out with their 6th Gen FA in series production by the same time.
Moreover there's the issue of the AMCA Mk-1 . If the prototype of the LCA Mk-2 is ready for taxi trials by 2028 we can expect the prototype of the AMCA Mk-1 to be ready for the same by 2030-31. Add 5 yrs for FOC. That's 2035-36. We'd then go in for development of the prototype of the AMCA Mk-2 which should be out by 2039 by which time China should be flying dozens of prototypes of their 7th Gen FA & the US should've completed their studies for their 8th Gen FA program by then approaching Congress for funding with their 7th Gen FA in series production .
It's back to where we began when we started off with the LCA program because that's the amount of distance we'd have put in between our programs & the rest of the world in terms of developing fighter aircrafts.