India signed a formal agreement Friday to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets from France’s Dassault for 7.9 billion euros ($8.8 billion), one of its biggest defence deals in decades.
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India inked a deal with France on September 23 to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets for €7.8 billion (Rs 59,000 crore).
Defence sources had earlier said that the deal comes with a saving of almost Euros 750 million than that during UPA government era, which was scrapped by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, besides a 50% offset clause.
The weapons package includes, amongst others, advanced Beyond Visual Range (BVR) METEOR missiles which is much better than the previous offer.
The first Rafales are expected to be delivered by 2019 and India is set to have all 36 jets within six years.
The Congress party on Saturday called on the NDA government to explain the advantages of the Rafale fighter jet deal inked between India and France.
Air force officials have warned for years of a major capability gap opening up with China and Pakistan without new state-of-the-art planes, as India’s outdated and largely Russian-made fleet retires and production of a locally made plane was delayed. The Rafale jets will be equipped with cutting-edge long-range missiles including “Meteor” and ‘Scalp’. The armaments cost about 710 million while Indian specific changes, including integration of Israeli helmet-mounted displays, will cost approximately 1,700 million. During the Kargil war, India used a BVR of 50 km while Pakistan had none.
“Sanctioned strength of fighter jets in the IAF is 42 squadrons, and of late, the situation was becoming critical and volatile”.
The “vanilla price” or the price of only the 36 aircraft is 3.42 billion euros. This forced both the countries to just sign an MoU in January, when French President Francois Hollande came, announcing their intention to sign an IGA.
The world’s top defence importer has signed several big-ticket deals as part of a $100-billion upgrade since Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi took power in 2014.
The aircraft will be bought by India in flyaway condition.
India becomes the third country after Egypt and Qatar to order Rafale aircraft from France.
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According to Dassault, Rafale – a twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter aircraft – equipped with a range of weapons is capable of carrying out all combat missions such as air supremacy, interdiction, ground support, in-depth strike, anti-ship strike and nuclear deterrence deterrence.
