Ronak Panchal
India signed the much-awaited Rafale deal worth ₹58,000-crore with France on Friday.
With this deal, India will get a fighter with 14 India-specific enhancements and a modern air-to-air missile that restores its edge in aerial combat over Pakistan.
The French fighter will come equipped with the 150-km range Meteor missile as part of the weapons package the Indian Air Force will receive under the €7.878-billion (around ₹59,000 crore) deal for 36 Rafale jets.
Meteor missile is a Beyond Visual Range missile and provides a no-escape zone three times greater than that of a conventionally powered missile in a head-on engagement.
Experts say that the Meteor is five times as lethal as its conventional equivalent such as the American AMRAAM missile, and can hit farther than the missile that Pakistan air force has in its arsenal.
The Rafale jets will also carry MICA missiles, air-to-land precision weapons with a range of over 300 kilometers.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the deal during his visit to Paris in April last year for an aircraft first proposed by the IAF nearly 16 years ago.
The deal has been hanging fire since Modi’s announcement because of protracted price negotiations. The French had made an opening offer of Euro 12 billion in May last year when the negotiations began, according to sources.
The French offer came down to Euro 8.6 billion on the midnight of 25-26 January, when French President François Hollande was in India as a chief guest for the Republic Day celebrations.
But the Indian side wanted the price to be reduced further. It was in May this year, sources said, that the two sides finally agreed at a price of Euro 7.878 bn. This includes the cost of 36 plain-vanilla fighters, the full weapons package, performance-based logistics, India-specific enhancements and associated supplies.
Sources said comparing it to the 126 Rafale aircraft tendered during the UPA regime isn’t appropriate, since that price never finalized. The defense ministry scrapped the 126 MMRCA tender last year.
According to sources, negotiations over the past 17 months have yielded more advantages to the Indian side over the MMRCA deal.
Along with the 36 French fighters, IAF will also get a better weapons package. Also free training for nine personnel, including three pilots, estimated to be worth Euro 100 million.
The IAF will get an additional guarantee for an additional 60 hours for the trainer version of Rafale fighters. A concession to keep the weapons storage in France for an additional six months without any charge.
The French have also agreed to supply spares for a period of seven years at initial cost, instead of five years. The new deal includes an option for renegotiation over the next five years. Authorities have also reduced the standard European escalation cost from 4% to 3.5%.
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