Antony alleged the almost Rs 59,000 crore that India will pay for 36 fighter jets comes at a steep cost and the jets will not be manufactured in the country under the Make In India initiative.
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He said the IAF is now down to 34 squadrons as against a sanctioned strength of 44 and the country needs more aircraft.
India signed an agreement Friday with France’s Dassault Aviation for the acquisition of 36 Rafale fighter jets.
So what makes this deal, first since the purchase of Sukhois from Russian Federation in the late 90s, a win-win for India.
The deal was finalised with the signing of the Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) by the Minister for Defence, Manohar Parrikar, and his French counterpart, Jean-Yves le Drian, at the Ministry of Defence.
The average cost of the basic aircraft is € 91 million or about Rs. 680 crore and the 36 jets include 28 single and eight trainer variants. The first fighter plane agreement in about two decades was inked nearly 16 months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the decision to buy the jets during his visit to France in April a year ago.
The air force now has around 32 squadrons, each comprising 18 aircraft, but has said it needs at least 42 to protect its northern and western borders with Pakistan and China.
“This is an achievement which will give the IAF the required potency in terms of penetration and capability”, Parrikar told reporters at the South Block.
“India needed a potent deep penetration aircraft for diverse roles and we decided that 36 were enough”, one defence official observed on the rationale. It includes Meteor Beyond Visual Range (BVR) air-to-air missile with a range in excess 150 kms.
The sources said the jets would arrive in India in batches, with the first two coming in the next few months. The original deal of MMRCA was for procurement of 126 fighters. The rest were to be produced in India with HAL with a technology transfer component.
A Memorandum of Understanding was signed with France in January this year for the purchase of 36 Rafale.
The sanctioned strength of the Indian Air Force is for 42 squadrons yet, India survives with only 32.
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The Rafale has been used by the French armed forces in combat operations for more than a decade now and has proven its operational excellence in various theatres around the world, said a statement by Dassault Aviation. It said in a release that the contract will create hundreds of jobs on Thales manufacturing sites.
