September 23 (ANI): India and France on Friday signed the inter-governmental agreement for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets for the Indian Air Force at the cost of Euro 7.87 billion.
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The inter-governmental agreement was signed by defence minister Manohar Parrikar and his visiting French counterpart Jean Yves Le Drian 16 months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced India’s plans to buy 36 Rafale fighter aircraft in a flyaway condition during his trip to France.
The Rafale, manufactured by French company Dassault Aviation, is a twin-engine delta-wing multi-role jet fighter.
“India & France signed the deal for 36 Rafale jets”.
In view of the critical operational necessity for multirole combat aircraft for the Indian Air Force, the administration of Modi, who came to power in May 2014, pursued a government-to-government route to acquire 36 Rafale jets in ready-to-fly shape. Even if it goes up India will not pay more than 3.5 per cent increase, sources said.
Q: When it comes to supplying these aircrafts, we understand that perhaps in the next two-three years, the first Rafale will land in India from France.
As per the reports, the Rafale fighter will have at least 12 India-specific enhancements.
The delivery of the jets will begin in 36 months and will be completed in 66 months from the date the contract is inked.
India says its locally made Tejas fighter, which took to the skies in July 33 years after it was cleared for development, will form a major part of its future fleet, but Parrikar has also said that India needed 100 new light combat aircraft by 2020 to replace Russian MiG-21s.
India’s Defence Ministry said it would confirm the exact price later on Friday, but officials said it would be close to 7.8 billion Euros.
The fighter jets will have state-of-the-art missiles like Scalp and Meteor that will give the Indian Air Force a capability that had been sorely missing in its arsenal.
But it continued to be held back by disagreements such as Delhi’s insistence that arms makers invest a percentage of the value of any major deal in India, known as the offset clause.
Like all defence deals, this deal too has a 50 percent optional clause under which India can procure 18 more jets at the same price but the government has so far stated that they would not order beyond 36.
– “Flying coffins” -The highly versatile aircraft is now being used for bombing missions over Syria and Iraq as part of an worldwide campaign against the self-styled Islamic State jihadist group. Sources said that Rafale would be able to do five missions per day as compared to three for other aircraft because of high turnaround time.
The high-tech Rafale jets will modernize the air force of the South Asian country that faces rivals Pakistan in the west and China in the north and east.
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Despite being significantly scaled down from the original 126 jets, this is the biggest contract for Rafale since Egypt and Qatar each ordered 24 jets a year ago.
