in the case of India, their engine development project for the HAL Tejas started out with ~50 million USD in 1989 and had a target goal of 5 years.
Given that (even after a 650% cost overrun and 30 years) the total engine development cost is still about $400 million USD, that buys about one and a half F-35Bs.
Even when picking good and cheap, there’s cheap and then there’s shoestring.