Tuesday, April 19, 2016

36 French Rafale Fighter Jets to Cost India Euros 7.8 billion

Closing the deal much below the asking price, India has finalised the much-touted deal for purchase of 36 French made Rafale fighter jets at around Euros 7.8 billion or Rs 58,600 crores, sources in the know told DefenceAviationPost.

The signing of the agreement will still take a while as approvals to ratify the price will be taken from the cabinet, sources added. A high-level team from France is expected to be in India in May to firm up the details for purchase of these 36 Rafale fighter aircrafts by India.

Indian officials led by Defence minister Manohar Parrikar have been negotiating hard to bring down the price of the Rafale deal. The expectation is that the final deal will be clinched by May-end. Parrikar had earlier said he was a “tough negotiator” and wanted the “best price” for Rafale fighter jets from France. “I am a tough negotiator. Let me save money for the nation,” Parrikar had been quoted as saying.

As reported by DefenceAviationPost.com, India wanted to keep the price below Rs 60,000 crore. Defence minister Manohar Parrikar had told DefenceAviationPost in an exclusive interview last month that he wanted to close the multi-billion dollar deal as early as possible.

“I don’t fix timelines but I am definitely interested in finishing it as early as possible,” Parrikar had said. He had, however, said that price was an important issue. “Price is equally important. While I want the aircraft I will definitely be interested in the right price,” he said. The deliveries of the nuclear-capable multi-role Rafale jets are likely to begin in 2019.

The deal for 36 fighter jets was first announced during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to France last year. The two sides had hoped to wrap up the strategic order during President Francois Hollande’s Republic Day visit in January, but the two sides had failed to reach a consensus on the price.

The deal comes with the clause of delivering 50 per cent offsets, creating business worth at least 3 billion Euros for smaller Indian companies and creating thousands of new jobs in India through the offsets.

The Rafale jet fighters are manufactured by Dassault Aviation. Under the proposed deal, companies like Safran and Thales will join Dassault in providing state-of-art technologies in stealth, radar, thrust vectoring for missiles and materials for electronics and micro-electronics.
18/04/16 Anupama Airy/Defence Aviation Post
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