Jayanta Roy Chowdhury
New Delhi, Feb 12, (.) India is advancing a multi-billion-dollar agreement to acquire 114 additional Rafale fighter F4 jets from France, of which 96 will be assembled at Dassault Reliance Aerospace Limited facility in Nagpur, ahead of French President Emanuel Macron’s visit to India next Tuesday.
The deal, which will include the purchase of 18 jets in fly-away condition, was cleared by the Defence Acquisition Committee headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday evening. It will be taken up by the cabinet committee on security as the deal size is expected to be worth between Rs 2.5 lakh crore and Rs 3.25 lakh crore.
Official sources said the deal will give necessary teeth to the air force, whose jet fighter strength has depleted in recent years and is at least 10 squadrons below the sanctioned strength of 42 squadrons, largely due to the retirement of ageing Migs 21s.
“The IAF has to be always ready for a two-front challenge and the aircraft acquisition has been long pending,” top officials said.
The 114 aircraft would be procured under India’s Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA) programme through a government-to-government framework, with the jets equipped with new missile systems and updated avionics.
Officials said “there would be progressive indigenisation, technology transfer and inflation-adjusted pricing. The MRFA programme will have F4/F5 standards and include newer and enhanced missile suites.”
To keep with indigenisation clauses, the deal will insist on making large parts of the parts and electronics needed to put together the advanced jets in India.
Nearly two dozen Indian firms are in talks with Dassault to be part of their development and manufacturing ecosystem.
Tata Advanced Systems signed a deal with Dassault for production transfer agreements to make Rafale jet fuselages in India. While Mahindra Dynamatic Technologies are also believed to be in talks for other systems.
Strategically, the Rafale has already proven central to India’s airpower calculus.
The Indian Air Force inducted 36 Rafales in an earlier deal signed in 2016, and the Navy has separately ordered a naval variant.
With the new acquisition, India’s Rafale fleet would expand to 176 aircraft, making it one of the largest operators of the platform outside France.
Indian officials have repeatedly highlighted the Rafale’s high serviceability rates, often cited at around 90 per cent, and its Spectra electronic warfare suite, which has been validated in operational deployments.
The Defence Acquisition Council, under the chairmanship of Rajnath Singh, “accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) for the procurement of Multi Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA) {Rafale
