India likely to directly buy 63 Rafale aircrafts from France

New Delhi The Indian government has more or less decided to scrap the mediummulti role combat aircraft MMRCA selection process in favour of direct purchase of 63 Rafale aircraft from France in a governmenttogovernment deal says India Strategic magazineAuthoritative sources told the journal that a MoU would be formally signed in Paris during the summit meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his host President Francois HollandeThe number of aircraft is half that the 126 jets the Indian Air Force IAF had tendered for 18 of which were to be acquired direct The rest will be made by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd HAL in IndiaThere have been serious differences over responsibility for the quality of aircraft to be made by HAL and the overall pricingDassault which produces the Rafale had said it would do the transfer of technology and invest 50 percent in India as part of the 50 percent offsets clause stipulated in the tender but would not be responsible for what comes out of the HAL production linesAlthough Dassault had won the tender on the basis of technical evaluation and its lowest bid the costing after accounting for periodic escalations during the life of the programme was touching 24 billionThis made the Ministry of Defence uncomfortable As negotiations with Dassault were not leading anywhere Defence Minister Manohar Parikkar observed that the deal could not go through if Dassault continued to ask for way too muchDefence ministry sources said it had bitter experience with French firm DCNS in the past over pricing while negotiating the Scorpene submarine deal and a decision was becoming difficultIt appears that there were frantic discussions between the defence ministry and the IAF which has been keen for the induction of new aircraftThe ministry then put up some options before the defence minister for a political decision and the option to buy 63 aircraft through the governmenttogovernment route was found the most acceptableIndications are that the Rafale deal will be part of a composite agreement including nuclear cooperation some technology sharing and more bilateral investmentsIndia had purchased about 50 Mirage 2000 from Dassault in 1985 and a few more later Although they were not under any governmenttogovernment deal that acquisition would be a model to followThe aircraft are under upgrades by Dassault and Thales the electronic warfare and other systems provider and HALDefence analyst Amit Cowshish a former top defence ministry officer responsible for military acquisitions observed that if the decision to go in for a direct purchase of 63 aircraft had indeed been taken then this shows great outofthe box thinking on the part of the ministryIt should make everyone happy particularly the IAF which needs the aircraft urgently and Dassault and its associates for the way out he saidHe added that it also opens more options for IAF to catch up with its requirementsThe tender or Request for Proposal RfP for the 126 MMRCA was floated in 2007 Rafale was declared the winner in 2012Others in the competition were European Eurofighter Typhoon Swedish Saab Gripen US Boeings FA18 Super Hornet and Lockheed Martin F16 and the Russian MiG35The number of IAF combat squadrons is much less than the sanctioned 42 hovering around 32 or 34The Mirage 2000 and MiG 29s both acquired in the 1980s are under upgrades to extend their lives by another 10 to 15 years